The Mystique of Jaune Arc
by Korzark
Summary: Jaune has picked up a bit of street magic in his spare time and is eager to make his name in the world, both as a huntsman and as a performing artist. But for some reason, strange things are happening around him. Why are hunters scared of him when he shows them a simple card trick? Why does Ozpin keep giving him a strange look? What's a Maiden and who's the old wizard?
1. Prologue (Not for the Faint of Heart)

_The wizard summoned his magic, every ounce he could muster, and bestowed it upon the sisters._

 _He smiled. "Take this gift, and know now that you are able to do so much more."_

-(Excerpt from: The Four Maidens. Original source unknown)-

* * *

It was a dark void. He was spinning uncontrollably with no power over his body. He could not see anything beyond the nothingness that was the void. There were no specific details and there were no demons that peered at him from beyond the void, but the complete darkness scared him nevertheless. He knew he was sleeping and he knew that he was only living through a strange dream but, as is the case for most dreams, knowledge was not enough to erase the discomfort that Aurelius Arc felt.

Eventually, he saw something. He saw his son and the sight struck a deep fear into his heart. The sight of a gangly, blond boy would have never frightened Aurelius Arc on a normal day. Aurelius Arc was not a regular man. He was a brave warrior who laughed in the face of Grimm. Despite this, he could not bring himself to laugh in the face of his son. Instead, he only cowered at the sight.

Eventually, the nightmarish vision of Jaune Arc moved. He balled his right hand into a fist, leaving his thumb up in a cruel mockery of the sign of approval that was accepted throughout the world. His left hand moved towards his thumb and though Aurelius tried to scream in protest, Jaune's left palm slowly closed around his thumb.

He swung his arms with the hope of catching the seams of the dream world and pulling it apart. He realized that his screams had been silent during this entire ordeal, but Aurelius continued to strain his throat, hoping that some spectral being would have mercy on him and end his nightmare. He cried with the hope that his wonderful wife would hear him and rouse him from his restless sleep. None of these thing happened, and the nightmare continued.

Still flailing and screaming in silence, Aurelius watched as Jaune's hand gripped his thumb. He knew what was coming next.

Jaune ripped his thumb off of his hand without even flinching. He wiggled his eyebrows as if he knew some sort of dangerous secret that Aurelius didn't, and put his thumb back into its original position.

When he let go, his thumb was reattached, free of any scars or blood.

Aurelius screamed. No sound escaped. Jaune's cruel eyebrows wiggled back at him. Aurelius had seen the same nightmare enough times to know what was coming next.

Jaune's voice was barely a whisper, but Aurelius heard it as if the boy was standing directly behind him.

"Hey dad, look," He said, flashing him an innocent and happy grin.

"Magic."

Aurelius screamed.

He felt a pair of hands take hold of his shoulders and he was shaken awake. A single dazzling green eye stared into his own and the sight of it calmed him down. The owner of the green eye seemed to recognize this and he assumed that her concerned expression had relaxed, though he couldn't confirm this as she had let herself collapse onto his body.

"Did you have that nightmare again?" Genevieve Arc asked.

Aurelius nodded, not confident that his voice would be anything but shaky and fearful.

"Shh, Shh. It's okay, honey," she cooed, running her hands through his hair. "Jaune's a good boy. He hasn't shown anyone his powers. He's safe."

The sound of his wife's voice calmed him down like it always did, but he was too ashamed to admit that Genevieve's assumptions about his nightmare were wrong. He hadn't been afraid for Jaune. He hadn't dreamt of some evil demon that was taking Jaune's soul away in exchange for granting him those spectral powers. He was ashamed to admit that he had simply been afraid of his own son.

As soon as he had learnt of his son's "gifts", he had forbidden their use in order to keep his son safe from the evils that would seek to abuse him, but he often wondered with a guilty mind whether he truly believed that he was protecting his son or whether he was trying to protect the rest of the world from the immense power that Jaune held.

"Honey, Jaune will be fine. Just go back to sleep," Genevieve said, her lethargic voice barely understandable as she mumbled into his chest.

Aurelius felt his nerves calm down at the comforting sound and he felt his muscles relax. Apparently Genevieve had felt it too, indicated by her small contented sigh and the slowing of her breathing. Eventually, when he felt her breath slow down to the soft rhythm that indicated she was sleeping, he made a silent apology and slipped out from underneath her, making sure that she was sufficiently covered by their blanket before he walked out of their bedroom in nothing but his bathrobe.

He walked down the hall towards the stairs of the Arc Manor. He walked down the stairs and passed by a small grandfather clock that told him that five o' clock had just passed. He made his way to the kitchen and after a short moment of consideration, he grabbed a banana from the counter and started to peel it.

As he chewed his makeshift breakfast, he thought about his dream and reassured himself that Genevieve was right. It didn't matter that Jaune had the powers of magic at his beck and call. He had forbidden the use of magic, so Jaune had no chance to expose his terrifying talents to the outside world. This meant that nobody would be targeting his boy's life and that he wouldn't be used as a human weapon.

He moved out of the kitchen and made his way to the den, wondering if it would be appropriate to pick up a few logs from the shed and put the fireplace to use. Summer had barely passed and the house was warm enough for him to be comfortably walking around in nothing more than a bathrobe, so he debated on whether the hypnotic sight of the flames would be worth the extra heat.

Then he remembered exactly why he was so unnerved. He shook and all thoughts of starting a fire out of his mind. It reminded him too much of one time where he had discovered Jaune practicing his sorcery in secret. Small tufts of flame and smoke had erupted from his hands and from the ground around him as he spun around, smiling innocently.

He had heard the legend that all fairy tales were true and that magic was real, but he had a policy of not believing in anything until he saw it with his own eyes. It was hard to deny his own policy when he had witnessed all of Jaune's acts of magic. When his oldest daughter had woken him with her screams on the night of the first act, it was easy to convince himself that what he had seen was some sort of mistake. When he saw Jaune casually plucking his thumb off of his own hand, Aurelius had fainted. At the time, he and Oriana, whose screams had woken him up, had agreed that they were both tired and had seen the same hallucination. Jaune had tried to say something when they woke up from their fainting episodes, but he had briskly walked away, refusing to meet his eye. He had recognized the immense power that Jaune held on more a primal level and on that same primal level, the deep fear and respect that he held unknowingly for Jaune forced him to avoid the boy until Jaune had given up on the subject and stopped trying to mention it.

A few months later, when he had forgotten the odd hallucinations, Jaune had come up after Aurelius had come back from a long mission, eager to present something to him in secret. Aurelius had patted his son's hair with no idea of the horrors he would soon witness. Jaune had slyly pulled him into his own room and showed him a set of playing cards. The boy had flared the cards out in his hands and asked Aurelius to pick one. After revealing that he had chosen the King of Spades, Jaune had taken the card and placed it back into the deck. After shuffling the deck a few times, snapping his fingers, and whispering a terrifying word of power under his breath, Jaune had asked Aurelius to check his own pockets.

When Aurelius had woken up from the brief fainting episode that followed, he had forced Jaune to promise not to show this "trick" of his to anybody else, including his sisters or his mother. While Jaune's agreement was reluctant, he was normally so obedient that Aurelius didn't think of the possibility that Jaune would go against his promise. It didn't stop Aurelius from burning the deck of cards, in hopes of exorcising whatever demons laid within.

From then on, the power balance within the Arc household had shifted. When Aurelius had restricted Jaune's card sorcery by forcing him into a promise and burning every single card that entered the house, he hadn't realized that Jaune's young and curious mind would only drive him towards equally terrifying alternatives.

For years, Jaune had terrorized the family by pulling coins out from behind everybody's ears, making small pieces of paper levitate, and conjuring flowers out of thin air, among other things. While Genevieve and most of Jaune's sisters didn't seem to fear these abilities, seeing as Jaune was promoting washing behind the ears, picking up litter, and because the flowers were rather nice, he and Oriana were terrorized by these casual displays of power.

As the only ones in the household who had been exposed to hunter training, with Oriana having graduated as a hunter recently, they knew how terrifying it was for a young boy to have such a control over this power, even when he didn't have his Aura unlocked. It was also the reason why they didn't want him to enrol him into a combat school despite his wishes. He shivered at the thought. At the moment, Jaune was an untapped well of unmentionable power, but what if Jaune learned to control it?

The kingdoms measured their power in the amount of hunters they had. Those hunters measured their power in how much Aura they had and in how well they could use that Aura. If Jaune were to be introduced into this world with a power that didn't seem to draw its power from any limited source, what would happen if he unlocked his Aura and became a hunter? He would throw the entire world off balance. He would make Vale the strongest kingdom by far, and while the kingdoms claimed to interact in peace, he knew that this power shift would not be welcome to some. He knew that his son's life would be constantly riddled with the threat of assassination in attempts to restore the power balance of Remnant and Jaune would eventually be forced into a life of constant war and alienation from his peers. No matter how much he was afraid of him, Aurelius loved his son and would never push him to such a horrible fate.

Aurelius shook his head and sighed, lifting his glass to his lips. He almost coughed at the realization that he had arrived at the den and had been sitting in his chair for a while. Apparently he had also poured himself a glass of wine while he was thinking about Jaune.

He sighed again and forced himself to relax, feeling his body sink a bit further into his soft chair. He held the glass of wine up to his eyes and swirled it around, letting the hypnotic spiral of blood-red liquid act as a replacement for the lack of a stoked fireplace. There wasn't much left in the glass and he hoped that he hadn't drunk much more subconsciously or Genevieve would be having a few words with him about drinking so early in the morning. Well, as long as the wine was already poured, not drinking it would just be a waste. He brought the glass to his lips and tipped it back. It was only a second later that he realized that without the wine, he would have nothing to keep his mind busy.

He pushed away the idea of pouring himself some more and put the glass aside, making a mental note to bring it back to the kitchen and wash it before anybody woke up.

He turned to the fireplace instead, staring at the sword mount that hung above it. Crocea Mors. Some would consider it strange to place such a battle-worn weapon in such a place, but Aurelius didn't care for the naysayers who suggested that a more ornamental piece of decoration would liven up the den. He held the weapon with great respect and when it wasn't in his hands, slicing through packs of Grimm like they were butter, what better place to allow the sword to relax than his second favourite room in the Arc Manor?

Genevieve hadn't allowed him to hang his companion over their bed in his favourite room, but he supposed he should be grateful for that. He was comforted by the fact that it was constantly watching over the room that his children would laze around in. While only Jaune seemed to take interest in the sword itself, taking it down to admire it and fiddling around with the sheath, he knew that his trustworthy partner would never let anything bad happen to the children under its watch.

He chuckled to himself and gazed at the sword mount, raising an imaginary glass as a toast, seeing as his empty glass was too far away to reach without actually standing up.

"To you, Crocea Mors. May you protect the Arc family for generations more."

…

He didn't know whether it was the wine that was causing these strange hallucinations, and he hoped that wasn't the case or Genevieve would have his head, but just in case he looked back up at where Crocea Mors should have been.

Crocea Mors was gone.

Aurelius Arc fainted.

* * *

Despite the taste of vomit in his mouth and the fact that he was currently hunched over a garbage bin right outside the Beacon landing strips, the childish and excited part of him could only marvel at the memory of how Beacon had looked from up in the bullhead, thousands of feet up in the air, all aboard a shaky aircraft that felt like it would explode spontaneously at any given moment.

At that memory, he could no longer hold back the waves of nausea and he unloaded the remnants of his lunch into the garbage bin.

…

Despite the overwhelming taste of vomit in his mouth, he looked up to Beacon with a great joy in his heart and a lack of anything in his stomach.

This would be the beginning. This would be the grand start to the legacy of Jaune the Magnificent, the first celebrity magician in Remnant's history.

* * *

 **Hey, so here's my little prologue/pitch to any potential readers of this story. Just in case it wasn't clear, it's a comedy story based around the idea that Jaune has picked up a bit of street magic in his spare time and is eager to make his name in the world. Unfortunately, not only do people not understand his tricks or how they work, they completely misunderstand him and his nonexistent power. If you've watched the entirety of RWBY, you might have guessed what this implies.  
**

* * *

 **As a little side note, I gave a few names out that may or may not be important later on in this story.  
**

 **Just a little trivia on the subject, Aurelius and Oriana are both Latin and Roman based names, both meaning Gold. Genevieve is a French name that is based on Juniper. Thought it would be neat if Jaune's French name came from his mother's side, especially since we know that at least one side of his family is based on a more Ancient Roman background since Crocea Mors shares a name with Julius Caesar's sword.**

 **Though it might be wrong, I would make a bet that if Jaune's family is ever shown in the series, one of his parents will have a Latin name while the other will have a French name.**


	2. Ladies Love It

**Sorry for the delay and the low quality of this chapter. As you all probably know, Breath of the Wild came out recently and boy, I gotta tell you. When you're playing that game, the hours just fly by, leaving you with no time to do anything else with your life! Not that I would know, seeing as I didn't buy it and I don't really care too much about it. That's just what I hear. What, you wanted to know why I was so lazy in writing this chapter? Various reasons, some of which are listed in the author's notes at the end of the chapter.**

* * *

 **Also, I want beta readers! More info at the very end of the chapter, below the various author's notes.**

* * *

A quick glance at the clock told him that a minute hadn't even passed since the last time he looked at it. He continued to stare until the second hand passed over the top of the clock and the barely audible sound of the shifting minute hand managed to shock him out of his temporary daze.

Out of habit, Ozpin raise his mug to his lips. After drinking what felt like gallons the night before, he didn't feel like he could be any more awake as he currently was, but he still found it in him to enjoy the aroma, the taste, and the warmth that the coffee brought.

Unfortunately for him, after a few more sips his mug was empty. He looked at the clock to see that thirty seconds had yet to pass.

He sighed and reached for a nearby folder, accepting the fact that he would much prefer that he stayed busy instead of letting himself fall into the trap of taking a short rest and not being able to get back into the working mood, even though Glynda had insisted that he take half an hour to rest before he gave his speech to the initiates of Beacon Academy. While he did see the benefits of taking a short nap, or even just taking the few rare moments of freedom to do absolutely nothing, the very idea of it set his caffeine-addled mind on edge.

Instead, he looked at the folder in his hands. It was rather thin in comparison to the rest of the student files that laid safely tucked away into the various cabinets around the room, but it was also one of the most troublesome, which was no surprise to him. In his years as the headmaster of a combat school and a huntsman who had vowed to dedicate his life in saving the world from all the evils that threatened to harm it, he knew that information was power, and thin folders meant little information.

This year, he didn't know whether to trust the general rule that the students with the thinnest folders would be the ones to cause the most trouble. While it seemed to be the case that the young Ruby Rose had the ability to find trouble wherever she went, the reason why her file was so thin was only due to the fact that she simply has two years of school missing from her file that everybody else would have otherwise had. For this reason, he doubted that the state of her student profile was any indication of the amount of trouble she would cause.

Blake Belladonna was a case where he couldn't help but want to be wary of, but after interviewing her personally, he couldn't help but think that she was just a misguided soul who simply took the wrong path in life and was desperately trying to change. He knew about her past with the White Fang, and after talking with her he could gleam the amount of guilt that she felt about it. He couldn't imagine her being a spy, but even if she was, he didn't want to risk turning away a well-meaning student out of fear.

He focused his attention on the folder that he held in his hands. He opened it and a single paper fell out in a lazy arc.

On the top of the paper, in an overly flowery font, it read: Jaune Arc.

Ozpin scanned the rest of the folder for what seemed like the hundredth time, in hopes of finding more than just a single resume but he confirmed once again that the folder was empty, now that the largely empty resume has fluttered out onto his desk.

"Jaune Arc," Ozpin mumbled to himself, finding some familiarity in the name. He knew that most people would find it wrong to accept a student just because of their lineage, and in most cases he would agree. As a result, his own explanation for accepting the young record-less man would simply be that he accepted him because he saw potential. He understood that it would be a weak argument, but anybody who knew him would have probably been satisfied with it if they knew about his views on the potential of the human soul.

While that explanation wasn't a complete lie, Ozpin was happy that nobody had yet to contest him on the young Arc's acceptance. While he firmly believed that the young Arc had great potential, he knew that most of that faith came from his birthright. The Arcs were a family that held their place in the history of Remnant as great leaders and hunters. While they were not as well known as some other families, Ozpin knew that any person who had fought alongside an Arc as he had, held a great respect for them.

So while he had great faith in the young Jaune's potential, he also held great faith in the legacy that he held.

Ozpin's eyes wandered away from the top of the paper, away from the boldly printed name, passing over the 'Academic History' section that held the name of an unfamiliar school, and the 'Work Experience' section that simply read: [Work Position] [Company of Employment] [Time of Employment]. While this particular section had confused Ozpin when he first laid eyes on it, a quick search on the CCT Network had shown that Jaune Arc merely copied the template of his resume from the most popular search result, and had likely forgotten to delete the section.

When his eyes wandered to the end of the paper, towards the 'Hobbies and Interests' section of the resume, his eyes narrowed despite having read over them at least a hundred times before.

"I like Magic."

The second reason that he had accepted a civilian without any training into his school.

He heard a soft clicking of the minute hand of his desk clock, followed immediately by the harsh beeping from the scroll in his pocket. He frowned, swearing that he had at least ten more minutes left before he had to address the students downstairs, but got up nevertheless, choosing to trust in his scroll and accept that he had let his mind wander for a few minutes. The thoughts of the young Jaune's lineage and the strange words that he left at the bottom of his resume flooded his mind even as he let the elevator take him down to the ground floor of the academy.

"Sir, is everything alright?"

If he were a younger man, he might have struck out with his cane after being caught so off guard, but with age came the realization that he was not as attentive as he hoped he was, at least not all the time. Looking up, he saw the face of his deputy headmistress and immediately felt relieved that he had not attacked her.

"My apologies, Glynda. What were you saying?"

A glimmer of concern passed over her eyes. He gave her a reassuring smile.

"I was just letting you know that we've arrived at the auditorium, though you may have to wait a few moments for the few stragglers who are arriving late."

His mind jumped to the piles of paperwork that he had been working on until recently and his imagination ran wild with the possibility that one of the bullheads had been delayed or damaged by any rowdy students-to-be who he may or may not be responsible for by the end of the next day. "Has anything happened?" he asked, hoping that his desperation didn't show through his voice, though he doubted that the kindred soul in Glynda would judge him for worrying.

"No, nothing serious," Glynda replied, flipping a page over on her clipboard. "It seems that one of our students managed to cause a minor dust explosion, but as the dust was not part of the Beacon's inventory and the dust explosion itself occurred on school grounds, there shouldn't be any paperwork involved."

"No injuries? No damages?" Ozpin asked.

"While Ms. Rose and Ms. Schnee were in the center of the blast, their aura managed to shield them from all damage. Though the tiles they were standing on did get charred somewhat, it is not significant enough to require any special repairs or clean up."

"That's a relief," he said, letting his shoulders untense. "Though I'm not sure if this sense of relief will remain standing after the initiations tomorrow."

Though she didn't smile back at him, Glynda gave him a look that seemed to consist of an even mixture of amusement, understanding, and dread. "Let's hope that nothing too absurd occurs this year," she said, not bothering to hide how thin her faith in those words ran.

He gave a small laugh, not bothering to restrict himself with the same air of professionalism that Glynda seemed to keep as her constant companion. "Let's hope indeed." Though she didn't smile back, he had known her long enough to be able read the tiny hints of her exasperated amusement at the fact that they were even entertaining the possibility of a disaster-free year. "You really should let your emotions show on your face more often, Glynda. It would make the students enjoy your classes a lot more."

"If I let my emotions show so often, the students would take me less seriously as a disciplinarian. Without a chain to yank them back, our school would be overrun with swarms of children with more power than self-control."

"You say that as if that isn't already the case."

"Beacon is still standing so it isn't nearly as bad as my imagination suggests it could be." She gave him a small smile, perhaps to humor him. "In any case, the last of the children have managed to find their way into the auditorium. The stage is yours to take, sir."

He gave her a brief appreciative nod and after Glynda stepped aside, giving him enough room to push open the doors to the auditorium, he did just that.

As a tall man, he was no stranger to towering over people, and with the elevated height of the stage, he couldn't help but feel that the students were so small. While Glynda made it a point not to call them students until they officially passed initiation, maybe it was appropriate that she called them children instead. A few of them he recognized from his personal history with their families, as he did with Ms. Rose and Ms. Xiao Long, and he recognized a few of them just because he had seen their faces in the news before, as he did with Ms. Nikos and Ms. Schnee.

He was even proud to say that even in his sleep-deprived state, he could comfortably say that he recognized the faces of everyone in the room even if he had only briefly skimmed through their student applications, but he was disappointed to admit that he would never be able to attach names to their faces. There were a few exceptions of course.

Near the doors stood a young man, easily spotted by his messy blonde hair that seemed to clash oddly with the smart blue blazer that he wore. Jaune Arc. The boy clearly had the desire to become a hunter, but why had his family kept him from it for so long? What secrets did he hide?

He felt a few more gazes, including Glynda's, focus on him, silently pressuring him to start speaking. He flipped the switch of the microphone in front of him.

"I'll keep this brief."

* * *

The soft vibrations of his scroll under his pillow were strong enough to wake him up, but he still couldn't gather his senses fast enough to turn the alarm off before it started to give off a high-pitched wail. A few groans sounded out from some of the bodies that laid in a few metres around him in every direction. In a well practiced manner, Jaune's hand snaked underneath his pillow, grabbing the scroll in such a way that his hand would somewhat muffle the wailing coming from the speakers until he managed to find the correct button that would deactivate the invasive sound for good. The groaning of his fellow students quickly stopped.

Though his eyelids were still heavy, he let out a silent yawn and stretched out his arms. When he cracked open an eye, his vision was still a bit blurry, letting in only the sight of the rising sun that contrasted the otherwise dark room with its orange hue. After a few more blinks he realized he was mistaken.

As a brother to seven sisters of varying personalities and ages, he was no stranger to seeing girls sneaking around in their pyjamas. But then again, he doubted that girls usually wore armor and gloves to bed so he felt that his confusion at the strange scenario was rather appropriate. He also doubted that the large megaphone were usually not a typical item that was included as something that you would find in the 'sleep attire' section of a clothing store.

"Umm… Hi?" he tried, unsure of what to make of the lone girl standing in the middle of an island of sleeping boys.

"Shush," she said in a volume that seemed much too loud, not even bothering with a stage whisper. "You'll wake him up. That's my job."

"Umm-"

"Good morning, Nora." The voice came from the vicinity of the girl's feet. "Is that a megaphone in your hand?"

"Nope!"

Jaune's eyes widened as Nora took the megaphone, easily the size of a large traffic cone, and simply shoved it into her pockets. "What- you-" he stuttered, pointing at her with a shaking finger.

"It's rude to point, you know," the girl allegedly known as Nora said, holding her arms akimbo and giving him an overly dramatic sigh and eye roll. "Also, my name is Nora, not you."

"Nora," the boy below her said, cutting off his own unintelligible reply. "Don't be rude." Nora gave a mock salute and the boy pushed his upper body up to a sitting position.

"You have my thanks. You probably saved me from a much ruder awakening." It took Jaune a few seconds to realize that both the words and the outstretched hand were meant for him. "My name is Lie Ren. I usually go by Ren. It's a pleasure to meet you."

"Jaune Arc," Jaune replied automatically, finding the familiar words much easier to form in comparison to the questions he had floating around in his mind. "Short, sweet…"

His words trailed off when he realized the hand that he was reaching for was already occupied by a large green object, even if he could have sworn that Ren had extended his hand for him to shake.

A second passed before Ren seemed to notice the odd way that Jaune was staring at his hand. When he looked down to analyze the problem, he seemed just as surprised to see the object in his hands. "Oh, sorry about that," he said. In a flick of the wrist, his hand was now empty and Jaune's mouth fell open. "It must have slipped out of my sleeve pockets while I was sleeping."

The words were like a trigger to Jaune. His eyes shot open and he lunged forward, reaching to cover Ren's mouth with his hands, but on the way, his foot snagged on his half-closed sleeping bag and he simply fell forward, onto the hard cement floor. Even with the dull pain that blossomed across his face, he managed to scramble back up.

"Ren," he hissed, trying to keep his voice as low as possible. "Rule number one of magic! Never tell your audience the secret!"

The boy simply gave him a raised eyebrow and exchanged a confused look with Nora who only gave him a shrug in reply. Ren looked back at him. "Magic?"

* * *

"So, Pyrrha, have you given any thought to whose team you'd like to be on? I'm sure everyone must be eager to unite with such a strong, well-known individual such as yourself."

While she didn't think that the pitch or the tone or the way of speaking was annoying or painful, she still had to shut away the part of her that wanted to clap her hands against her own ears.

"Hmm... I'm not quite sure. I was planning on letting the chips fall where they may."

She gave a well practiced smile that would no doubt please Weiss Schnee, just like how it had pleased a dozen other influential members of society who she had been forced to talk with.

"Well... I was thinking maybe we could be on a team together."

"Well, that sounds grand!" she said, shutting away the part of her that wanted to clap her hands against the girl's ears.

"Great!" Weiss said, totally oblivious to the moral struggle that Pyrrha was having.

When Weiss turned away with a maniacal grin plastered onto her face, muttering something about strength and domination to herself, Pyrrha allowed herself the freedom to let out a big sigh. She was familiar enough with rich people to recognize an inner monologue when she saw one, and she was more than happy to take advantage of the short period of rest where she could take off the mask and let her facial muscles relax for a moment.

 _And she'll come back in five… four… three…_

"Excuse me ladies. I'm extremely sorry to bother you and I hope I'm not being rude, but my locker is right behind you."

The words shocked her out of her countdown, more so because for a crazy moment, she thought the awkward and robotic male voice was coming from Weiss herself. When she noticed the tall blond boy standing to her side she gave a start.

"Oh, I'm sorry. I didn't realize."

The boy gave a short laugh. "It's no problem… in fact… I should be the one apologizing to you. Please accept this gift."

Pyrrha gasped as a beautiful flower, coloured in red and highlighted in soft yellows, suddenly appeared in his hand, presented to her. She reached out with a shaking hand to take the flower, but when her fingers touched the boy's own, she instinctively flinched away. Her eyes widened and she looked up at the boy's face. She had planned to give a quick apology for her rude reaction, but she found her words and her entire being caught in the blue pools that were his pure and angelic eyes. Though her focus and vision were mostly monopolized by his beautiful gaze, she couldn't help but notice his lips parting and curling upwards, letting out a small chuckle that she swore she could taste on her tongue.

She suddenly grew painfully aware of the fact that her lips were incredibly dry. Perhaps it was from the sudden increase in the room's temperature?

"While I may not be an expert in flowers, I couldn't help but think that this lovely flower would suit you perfectly."

While she had already heard him speak, the sound of his voice surprised her. The moment that his breath left his lips, she felt a sudden heat spreading from her heart to her face. She would have jumped back in surprise if it weren't for the fact that she no longer had any control over her own legs. Even if she had jumped back, she doubted that it would have changed anything. While she didn't understand why she was growing so hot whenever he spoke, she at least knew it wasn't because his breath itself was hot. The very idea of it was absurd, and even if his breath was actually warmer than average, he was not nearly close enough for her to be able to feel it wash over her skin.

The very thought of it drove an intense heat through her entire body and she suddenly found it very difficult to remain standing.

Her mind was in such a haze that she could not focus on anything other than the sapphire eyes that seemed to penetrate her very being, but she heard something crying out from an unfamiliar part of her mind that seemed to beg for her to listen. Another part of her that screamed of danger and the desire to run away from this mysterious man who could bring her to her knees with just a look and a few words.

She listened to her more familiar sense of self preservation first, finding some comfort in the familiarity of danger. The quick damage report registered familiar symptoms that led to no answer. Knees weak, face hot, rapid heartbeat, trembling fingers? While they were common issues that she had to face often in her competition fights, her battle-ready mind saw no reason as to why she would be feeling them now.

Suddenly, the more repressed part of her mind kicked down the door to her attention. She gasped again as she suddenly recognized the feelings, not from her past experiences, but from the romance novels that she often read before she fell asleep.

She never imagined the experience of her first love would be so intense.

* * *

Jaune could barely hold himself back from screaming in excitement.

He had done it! He had finally given a successful performance!

After having his confidence blown out completely when Ruby referred to him as Vomit Boy and mistakenly thinking that Nora and Ren were both magicians like him, he didn't feel like his journey to find the first ever audience in Beacon would ever end.

When he approached his locker to find two girls standing in front of it, he felt almost too afraid to randomly perform for them, but he decided to give it a try anyways. He certainly didn't expected the good reaction that he received. The redheaded girl had almost fallen over in shock when he pulled out the marigold flower that he had stored in his sleeve, and while he was deliberately turning away from the pretty white-haired girl in fear of losing his composure in the face of her beauty and losing his 'mysterious gentleman' persona, he could tell from her awkward expression that she was too amazed by his skills to gather up an appropriate reaction.

It was a shame that he hadn't chosen to keep the white tulips in his sleeve, or he might have approached her first.

"Oh where are my manners," he said, a bit louder than necessary. "I forgot to introduce myself. Jaune Arc. Short, sweet, rolls off the tongue, ladies love it." He hoped that the nervous voice crack was just something he imagined.

The redheaded girl's eyes opened wide and after a quick nod, she extended her hand woodenly. "Pyrrha Nikos," she mumbled.

His eyes lit up as he reached out for her hand, making sure to grab it lightly as possible so she wouldn't feel it when he slipped the second marigold from his sleeve and into her waiting palm. His heart started to sink when Pyrrha almost jumped out of her skin the moment that he started the sleight of hand maneuver, but when she looked down at the flower and gasped, he let out a sigh of relief. It seemed like she hadn't actually noticed the movement and was just jumpy.

"I simply felt that one flower wasn't enough, Pyrrha," he said. "I would give you more, but I wouldn't want to trouble your with more flowers you could hold." That and the fact that he didn't have any more flowers on his person.

Pyrrha's eyes widened as she held both flowers in her hands and he gave himself a mental high-five. Satisfied that he had left one of his audience members thoroughly mystified and impressed by his stage persona, he peeked out of the corner of his eye to gauge the beautiful white-haired girl's reaction at his performance. He gave himself a fist pump when he saw that she had backed up a few steps out of sheer amazement. He didn't quite understand why she had a pained cringing expression, but he never claimed to be a good people's person.

In any case, he had already performed for two people! And it was incredibly successful to boot! He sneered triumphantly at the thought of how his magic teacher and his childhood magician friend would react if they saw him now. They had both teased him mercilessly saying that his first performance would fall to pieces because of his nerves, but who managed to pull it off? He did!

"Take that-"

Before he could yell out their names, a sharp sound came from the intercom, followed by the voice of the deputy headmistress that had he recognized from the previous day. "Would all first-year students please report to Beacon cliff for initiation? Again, all first-year students report to Beacon cliff immediately."

Jaune frowned at the rude interruption by the intercom, but it did serve to remind him that he should be focusing on the test ahead instead of reminiscing on the past. Now that he had a taste of success as a magician, it was time for him to go ahead and make his first steps as a huntsman.

"It was nice meeting you two," Jaune said, taking a bow towards his appreciative audience. "I'll be going on ahead to the cliffs. See you there." And with a wave, he was gone.

* * *

"So… That's the friend that you made yesterday?" Yang asked as she watched the blond boy walk out the room, leaving a pair of frozen girls behind.

"Yeah… He wasn't like that yesterday though," Ruby said. From the absolutely confused way that she said it, Yang couldn't help but believe that she was telling the truth.

A few seconds of silence passed between the two.

"Do you think we should do something?" Ruby asked.

"Hmm?"

"About them, I mean," she said, pointing to Weiss and redheaded girl.

Yang sighed. "I guess so," she said, pressing a button on her scroll, stopping the stopwatch at thirty seven seconds. "I wanted to see how long it would take for them to unfreeze on their own, but I'd feel pretty bad if they missed initiation because of it."

* * *

 _Next chapter: Jaune discovers his semblance that allows him to turn into an all-powerful dragon lord who can control the elements._

 _Also next chapter: The readers discover that they've been wasting their time on another OP Jaune story without even knowing it._

* * *

 _Just kidding…_

 _Maybe…_

 _Tune in next time to find out for sure._

* * *

 **Just to note, I didn't shoehorn in the mentioning of a magic teacher and companion just because I read some reviews that told me that Jaune should have been taught by someone else. I've thought ahead a bit for this story, and having a magic teacher was something I always intended.**

 **Also, to explain why it took so long for me to write a ~4000 word chapter, aside from general laziness and not having time to write, most of the energy I put into this story since I posted the first chapter has been dedicated to thinking up future punchlines. I don't know when most of my ideas will be introduced, but I find them really funny so they might be introduced soon. I don't know.**

* * *

 **Oh what a mess. Both the situation and the writing. If you've come from my other story,** _ **A New Set of Rules**_ **, you're probably familiar with how I beat myself up on my writing. If not, you might as well get used to it.**

 **Just gonna put it out there and say that I hate following the canon script, but for some reason I try to stick by it due to some weird self-imposed rule.**

 **Anyways, gotta say this chapter was really difficult for me for some reasons. I swear I wrote the meeting between Jaune and Ruby literally five times before I just decided to ignore it. Not that Ruby's reaction to Jaune's magic won't be featured, but because it's not important to the story that I feature it so quickly. The only things that I absolutely had to do this chapter were to introduce Jaune to Ren and Pyrrha, which is why I'm keeping the introduction scene with Ren even though I'm really not happy with how it turned out.**

 **Of course, I could've workshopped this chapter to make it a bit more bearable to read, but laziness trumps all.**

* * *

 **I'll save you guys the trouble of googling what a marigold symbolises in flower language. Passion, creativity, cruelty, grief, jealousy. Honestly, I didn't even know that a marigold symbolized these things before I decided to use it in this chapter. I just searched up "red flowers" on google and chose the marigold because it was both red and yellow, which could allude to Pyrrha's red/bronze colour scheme or Jaune's unintentionally implied intentions to show his interest in Pyrrha by giving a flower that has both of their hair colours. I only looked up the meaning of marigolds in flower language afterwards and was pleasantly surprised by how incredibly appropriate they are as a symbol for my upcoming ideas.**

* * *

I WANT BETA READERS!

I don't necessarily want someone who's good at grammar, or spelling, or anything like that (though it would be a plus if you were good at that), so don't think that just because you're not an experienced writer/editor, you're not fit for the job.

After reading the reviews, I felt a little overwhelmed because I did not expect the love that the first chapter got, and I felt confused because I really didn't think my first chapter was as funny as you guys are claiming in the reviews

Which made me real self-conscious about future releases.

Basically, I just want one or two readers who I can bounce ideas off of, ask them if certain ideas are funny or not, and generally just give me the OK on the general quality of the finished chapter before I submit it.

This does mean that you'd be getting the story in a more segmented and disorganized fashion (much like the current chapter feels like) rather than the completed products, but you'd also be getting early access to my ideas and jokes.

I don't really like how impersonal the Beta Reader thing on Fanfiction feels, so if you're interested, please just PM me a message and a pseudo-application. All I ask for this application is for you to point out your favourite funny thing about the story so far and an explanation of why you think it's funny or why you think it works. It can be a particular line, a general feeling, or an entire passage, etc.

If I choose you to be my beta, I'll contact you before 2018.

* * *

 **Holy word count inflation! More than 1000 words of non-story.**


	3. The Mystical Descent

**[EDIT]**

 **… Dammit. I promised myself that I wouldn't do this when I first started to write the story. Unfortunately, I made such a huge mistake in this chapter that I had to go and rewrite some of it or else a huge part of my story ideas would be legitimately ruined.**

 **Thankfully, I managed to figure this out and before I even finished the next chapter, rather than having to retcon some explanation later on in the series, but I'm still really sorry for those of you who hate this kind of thing.**

 **If you don't actually notice the changes I made, then that's good. If you did notice the changes, then you might be able to piece together some things about the story and I apologize for the indirect spoilers.**

 **[EDIT]**

* * *

 **After writing my own barely altered version of initiation, I have a small question. How did Jaune not die in the first thirty second without having his aura unlocked? I don't know how much force is required to launch a lightly armored six foot something tall boy hundreds of meters into the air, but I think it's safe to assume that it's enough force to shatter that boy's legs. Also, if his fall was suddenly stopped by a spear lodged in his sweater's hood with enough force to drag him along and pin him to a tree, how was his windpipe not crushed by the pull against his collar?**

 **The things that I have to put up with, writing RWBY fanfiction. All this suspension of belief that's a requirement for watching the show. Nothing annoys me more than writers who ignore logic for the sake of convenience and comedy.**

 **…**

 **Wait a second…**

* * *

 **A big thank you to my lovely assistant, Catastrophic Bacon, for helping me out as my beta writer. Unfortunately, I was too eager to upload the chapter to get the last section out to him, so if you find any mistakes in the last part of the chapter, it's 100% my fault.**

* * *

"Rule number one: Never tell anyone the secrets of your trick. How could we awe people if they know how simple it really is? Do you remember that card trick I showed you when we first met? Of course you do. Since I still haven't taught you how to do that one, a part of you still believes that it was true magic."

She allowed herself a small smile at the memory.

"Rule number two," she said, this time speaking her thoughts out loud. Nobody else was in the room to hear her. "A magician is always prepared."

She patted down her clothes as she said this. The slight bumps of the various objects in her various inner pockets told her that none of her tools had come loose. After a few brief pats, she was confident enough to say that she had fulfilled the second rule.

Without anything else to do with her hands, she made a small flourish of the wrist out of habit. "The second rule is an example of the first. Sometimes a magician is caught off guard and is faced with the possibility that their trick will fail, hence the existence of rule number three. A magician must never look unprepared, even in the case that she is."

She hesitated for a second after repeating the third rule, but she continued on in a slightly more timid voice. "Rule number four," she said.

"A magician's job is to make everybody around him happy."

The mere thought of the honest expression on Jaune's face when he had first created that sappy rule made her cheeks heat up in embarrassment by proxy. After a few more seconds of wordless cringing, she finally allowed herself to smile at the old memory. He certainly had been a cute kid. At least, cuter than she had been.

She chuckled to herself as she remembered her immediate reaction to get angry and demand that she could make a rule. It had infuriated her that even though their magic teacher had been teaching her long before Jaune had come along, she hadn't even thought of adding her own rules to their teacher's original three.

"Rule number five. Whenever they're performing, a magician's persona must never falter. We are not mystical beings, but in the eyes of the audience we are presenting them with a world of wonder that does not exist. We are the keepers of that wonderful world, and we must never lose that image."

She blushed a bit. In retrospect, her own rule had been just as sappy and idealistic, though she had been much less direct about it than Jaune.

In a flash of sudden realization, she shot up in her seat. Jaune was only an year younger than her, wasn't he? That meant that he would probably be graduating from a primary combat school by now, if his dream of becoming a performing magician-huntsman hadn't faded since she last saw him. If his ability to pour hours upon hours into learning a single trick was any testament to his dedication, she would wager that he would be able to get into whatever school he chose.

Her eyes shut in concentration as she thought about which school Jaune would choose to go to. It was easy to presume that Jaune would go to Beacon because of the fact that he lived in Vale, but she couldn't rule out the option of Haven Academy. She knew that Jaune loved the idea of Mistralian culture and their love for the arts.

If she remembered correctly, Haven Academy and Beacon Academy both started their initiations on the same day, around a week before the actual start of the semester so the passing first-years could get used to the school before they started the lectures. So if she was correct in her thinking, Jaune would be going through his initiation tests in a few months time.

She bit her lip in worry as she remembered how the goofy blond boy would barely be able to walk across the street without tripping on nothing and scraping his knee, but she quickly shook the image out of her head. It had been years, and surely Jaune had shed some of his clumsiness as he grew up. He would be fine.

* * *

"AAAAAAHHHH!"

Jaune whipped through the air, as the world spun violently around him until all he could see was a swirl of colours.

 _Quick Jaune you need to think of something!_

The image of his childhood friend popped into his mind for some reason, shaking her head.

 _"Even if you're panicked, you can never show it on your face, Jaune. Don't you remember rule five? It's the most important one."_

"AAAAAAHHHH!" he responded, not quite appreciating or agreeing with the timely advice that the memory had to offer. "AAAAAHHH-" His counter-argument was cut off as a he felt a sharp tug on his sleeve, quickly jerking his body violently to one side. Even though his momentum hadn't really stopped and was just going in a new direction instead, he appreciated the fact that he was no longer spinning uncontrollably through space.

It took a millisecond for his vision to reorient itself and marvel at the scenery, and it took another millisecond for his flight to end as his wrist collided violently with a tree trunk, causing him to hiss in pain. His body followed his wrist soon after and he felt his impact travel all throughout his body as his back slammed against the tree.

"FFU-"

The image of his mother popped into his mind as he opened his mouth.

 _"Remember Jaune, if you don't have anything nice to say, then you shouldn't say it at all."_

"Thank you," he yelled instead, saying the most polite phrase he could think of on the spot, and though it helped a bit to vocalise the pain that he felt, it was somewhat lacking.

"I'm sorry." The voice surprised him as he didn't really expect an answer. He was immediately grateful for the helpful tip that his mother gave him.

"Thanks mom," he managed to groan. Her soft smile and nod seemed to indicate that she understood what he had said, despite the fact that his words were somewhat muffled by the tree that was still planted firmly in his face. Or was his face that was planted in the tree? In either case, there was a joke hidden somewhere in there. Something about plants and trees. He couldn't understand the connection between them. What was he doing in the forest again? He could've sworn it was something important, but for the life of him, he couldn't remember what it was.

He could hear the familiar laughter of his childhood friend as he struggled to remove his face from the bark of the tree with one hand. His struggles only seemed to make her laugh even harder, and with a higher pitch.

He wanted to tell her to be quiet and let him think about why he was exploring a forest, but when he looked around to see where she was, he could only see stars.

Why could he see stars? And what was that high-pitched ringing in his ears?

* * *

A majority of people would never consider the Emerald Forest to be a beautiful place. Most people would be too afraid to walk a single step in a forest so densely populated by Grimm, let alone take to time to admire the lush forestry that coloured the entire world with a soft shade of green.

But then again, most people could not fight the creatures of Grimm.

Among the hunters, the hunters-in-training, and the various people who had their Auras unlocked for other reasons, a majority of them would still never consider the Emerald Forest to be a peaceful place. Even if they were confident that their Aura was meaty enough to survive an attack from ten Beowolves, the forest thicket was so dense in some areas that the unwary hiker could be surrounded by eleven Beowolves and he wouldn't be able to see them until they actually bit down.

But the threat of a Grimm attack would never match the levels of anxiety that Lie Ren had experienced as the best friend of Nora Valkyrie.

So in most cases, Lie Ren would have found this lonely walk through the Emerald Forest to be one of the most relaxing events in his life. Unfortunately, life liked to prove him wrong and he was face to face with a problem that was roughly the size of a King Taijitu.

"Mom, can you answer the call, already? The ringing is bothering me and I really want to go to sleep."

Ren looked up the King Taijitu-sized tree to see a familiar blond boy, dangling precariously at the very top of the tree by the sleeve of his blazer.

"Jaune, is that you?" he called out, somewhat uncomfortable with raising his voice and disturbing the quiet of the forest, but recognizing the necessity for it.

He winced as the boy at the top of the tree started to flail around wildly. "What? Who's there? Where are you hiding."

"Jaune, please stop. You'll fall." To his surprise, Jaune's movements stopped immediately.

"You still haven't told me where you're hiding," Jaune complained.

"I'm below you."

Ren could see that Jaune had tilted his head downwards. He was a bit too far away to actually make out the expression on his face, though he could easily imagine that Jaune had a goofy smile that perfectly matched his one handed wave.

"Do you need help getting down?"

This time, he was actually able to see the white of his teeth as Jaune's grin broadened.

"Rule number two, stranger. Rule number two. I could get down there easily, even if I had a concussion or something."

Ren sighed as he waited for the boy to descend the tree and begrudgingly accepted his fate as the odd boy's partner. While he was used dealing with strange people, this meant that he would just be responsible for two insane friends since he couldn't ever imagine Nora leaving him alone.

He watched as Jaune, with his free hand, touched his chest, his back, and then the spear that stuck out of the tree. He idly wondered about what sort of strange ritual it was, but recognized that he might never understand it the strange ways of the insane.

"Now witness the mighty power of Jaune, the Magnificent!" he exclaimed, raising his free hand in a fist and facing towards the sky. Ren sighed and didn't say anything in reply. If Jaune was anything like Nora, it would be next to impossible to explain why they should keep quiet in a forest full of Grimm.

Instead of wasting his breath, he watched as Jaune twisted and turned until his he was able to violently yank his sleeve away from the sword that held it pinned against the tree. For a moment Ren simply watched Jaune, wondering why he felt that there was something strange about the entire situation. It only took a few seconds for him to realize why.

"You're flying," he commented. Or at least the boy was floating, gently descending from the top of the tree at a casual pace.

"Of course I am. I'm Jaune, the Magnificent! There is nothing I cannot do!"

Well, that was that. He would have to deal with a second Nora for at least four years. Hopefully Jaune wasn't as violent as his ginger counterpart. He pinched the bridge of his nose and started to give a silent prayer to no god in particular. As he finished the prayer for his continued sanity and continued onto the prayer for his good health, a soft thud and a high pitched whining sound interrupted his thoughts. Looking up, the sight of Jaune sprawled lazily on the floor made him shorten his current prayer to a few words.

"Jaune? Can you get up, please?" he asked, making his voice as motherly as possible. He'd had a lot of practice with Nora.

The only reply that he received was a high pitched whine. Or perhaps it would be wrong to classify that as a response, as Jaune hadn't stopped making the sound ever since he set down onto the ground.

"I know you want to sleep, but we have a mission, Jaune. I promise you can sleep after the mission."

It usually took a few tries with a small variety of approaches with Nora, so he wasn't disheartened when Jaune continued to whine.

He squatted beside Jaune, softly placing his hand onto his shoulder. Physical contact was sometimes necessary to create a bond with such wild creatures. "Jaune? Are you hungry?" The whining stopped. Ren couldn't help but raise an eyebrow at that. While he often baited Nora with food, he hadn't honestly expected it to work on anybody else.

Unfortunately, while the whining had stopped, Jaune's relaxed facedown position hadn't changed. "I can make some pretty good pancakes once we finish this mission," he said. He was uncertain about whether the love of pancakes was also a common trait shared among the insane, but if the pattern fit so far… Well he hadn't started to whine again, so that probably meant that he didn't hate the idea. "I'm sure Beacon would let me use their facilities once we're accepted as students. I hear the kitchens have the best available stock of…"

Ren trailed off. It wasn't that he couldn't think of how to continue the sentence. He knew that Beacon used relatively high quality ingredients in their kitchens and he had hoped that this fact would be enough to motivate Jaune enough to get him onto his feet. So the issue wasn't about figuring out what to say, but rather he had spotted something that required an immediate response.

Blood. A small pool of it directly underneath Jaune's head.

Ren immediately grabbed Jaune's shoulders and turned him onto his back, though he immediately regretted the decision to do it so violently. Jaune's head rolled with the momentum of his body and lolled over to the side. The lower half of his face was covered in a thin crust of half-dried blood that blossomed out from his nose.

What? Why? How did this happen? Ren went through the motions of the basic first aid class that he vaguely recalled from an year before. Breathing was fine, heartbeat was fine.

"Jaune, do you have any medical conditions that might be the cause of- Jaune!" Ren surprised himself - and only himself if Jaune's lack of reaction was any indication of his lack of surprise - with the loud volume of his voice as a mild degree of panic creeped into his mind.

"No dad, I think the bike's broken. It just keeps falling over when I get on," Jaune mumbled. Ren's eyes snapped onto Jaune's, but he couldn't remember Jaune's eyes being so dull and lifeless when they had talked earlier that morning.

"Jaune! Stay with me Jaune," Ren said, snapping his fingers beside Jaune's ears.

"Don't worry mom, my wrist stopped hurting a while ago. No I didn't cry," Jaune responded.

Despite knowing that Jaune was absolutely delusional at the moment, Ren couldn't help but look at Jaune's wrists. His mind started to race when he saw that one wrist, the one that Jaune had been hanging from, was a deep shade of purple. Ren paled at the sight. Not because he was squeamish or afraid, but because this meant that there was something terribly wrong about the whole situation.

There were two conflicting messages that Jaune was giving off. The badly bruised wrist and his strange responses - perhaps due to a concussion - indicated that Jaune's Aura hadn't activated to protect him. On the other hand, with no Aura it would have been impossible for Jaune to use his Semblance to float gently back down to the ground. But if he had somehow floated down without the use of Aura…

Ren placed a hand onto Jaune's chest.

"For it is in passing that we achieve immortality," he chanted. He tried not to think about what would happen if his hunch was wrong. If Jaune already had an Aura, then the attempt at unlocking it again would potentially be violent. "Through this, we become a pillar of strength and honour, immeasurable in power and force of will. I release your soul, and by my spirit honour thee."

Having only done it once before, he had forgotten how disconcerting it was to feel the Aura seep out of his arms. His chest tightened and his hands balled into weak fists as the Aura left, bringing some of his energy with it and leaving a cold chill in its place. When the short process was finally over, he fell backwards into a sitting position as his legs lost all strength.

When he felt that he had taken enough time to catch his breath, he looked over to examine the results. Despite his currently increased need for oxygen, he couldn't stop the large sigh of relief from escaping when he saw that the colour of Jaune's wrist was already lightening up.

He looked back towards Jaune's face and was happy to see that he had lifted his head and was now staring directly at him. While his expression was confused, his eyes were no longer dulled.

"Ren?" he asked. "Where are we? What are we doing in a forest?"

"We are in the Emerald Forest and we are both taking the initiation test," he said, placing a hand on the soft ground and pushing himself up back onto his feet. "I found you, so now we're partners for the rest of our school life. Let's make the next four years safe and successful, shall we?"

Jaune still didn't seem to be fully aware of the exact situation, but he took Ren's outstretched hand regardless. "Yeah, I look forward to it."

Ren pulled Jaune up. "Jaune, I need to ask you a few questions," Ren said, deciding that there was no point in delaying his curiosities.

"Actually, before that could I ask you something first?"

Ren stared at him for a second before nodding. "Go ahead."

"Actually, I get that we're in the middle of our initiation." He paused for a second, perhaps in hesitation. "But I don't actually remember starting initiation. Not that I don't trust you or anything, but the last thing I remember is going up to the cliffs and waiting for Professor Ozpin to give us our instructions."

Ren nodded. "I can answer your question by asking mine. Are you aware that you just woke up from a concussion?"

Jaune looked at him strangely. "I had a concussion?"

Satisfied with the answer, Ren nodded. "Two more questions. Do you know what Aura is?"

Jaune looked at him strangely. "What's Aura?"

Ren nodded again. "Aura is the manifestation of our souls. By unlocking our Aura, hunters can use that power to aid them in combatting the creatures of Grimm. It can augment our attacks and increase our power, but more significantly, it protects your body from harm and can heal you in the case that it cannot fully protect you. You were concussed and had a damaged wrist. Aura can't heal broken bones immediately, but judging from the fact that it looks almost back to normal at this point, I'd say your wrist was only badly bruised."

Jaune's eyes widened and he immediately lifted both of his arms to his face. He had to check both wrists a few times to see the barely visible spot of purple that was quickly reducing in size and colour. "Wow…" he breathed out, eyes still wide. "It's like real magic…"

Ren frowned at this comment, making sure to ask about it later. "Last question, for now," Ren said, bringing Jaune's attention back onto himself. "How did you get down from the top of that tree?"

Jaune looked at him strangely. "I was on top of a tree?"

Ren cocked his head towards the tree behind Jaune and towards the sword that stuck out from its trunk. "You were hanging from that. I'm assuming the sword isn't yours?" Ren wasn't surprised to see Jaune shaking his head. He could see a longsword that was strapped to his waist. While it wasn't rare for hunters to utilise more than one weapon at a time, the red and bronze colour scheme of the sword in the tree didn't seem to match Jaune's outfit as most hunter weapons tended to. In addition to this, he saw no reason for Jaune to use a weapon to pin himself to the tree when he had a much safer way of descending from the sky.

"At first, I thought you used your Semblance to get down from the tree, but since you didn't know what Aura was, I'm assuming that you also don't know what a Semblance is." Ren waited a bit to give Jaune the chance to deny it, but the only interruption was a silent shrug. "A Semblance is a unique ability that most hunters can use, powering it with their Aura. Obviously, you didn't have your Aura unlocked until recently so it's impossible for you to have used your Semblance, so I'll ask again. How did you get down from the top of that tree?"

Unfortunately, the confused expression that Jaune gave him didn't give him any hope of getting a decent explanation. "Umm, sorry. I can't remember anything that happened between walking to the cliffs and waking up on the floor a few minutes ago," he said, scratching his head awkwardly. "What did I even…" Jaune trailed off. One hand raised up to touch his chest, and then his back. Ren vaguely recognized the motions.

Jaune blinked a few times before turning to Ren with a slightly anxious expression. "I floated down, right?"

Ren nodded in response. "If I hadn't just unlocked your Aura, I would have assumed that you have the Semblance to control gravity or fly. It was a very controlled descent."

"You didn't notice anything… weird?"

What did he mean by weird? "At the time, no," Ren said, noting the oddly excited expression that grew on Jaune's face. "But once I learned that you had no Aura, I almost assumed that I had been hallucinating. It was-"

"Magical?"

Ren took a step backwards to gain some distance from Jaune, who had stepped uncomfortably close with a wide smile. "I was going to say technically impossible, but I suppose that description is true as well."

"And you wanted to know how I got down?" Jaune practically vibrated with excitement.

"Yes please."

Jaune took a half step backwards and made a wide sweeping gesture with one hand, bringing it down with his body as he made a deep bow.

"I am Jaune, the Magnificent, and that…" Jaune trailed off, raising his head to look directly into Ren's eyes. "It was magic."

Ren wondered if Jaune hadn't fully shaken off the effects of his concussion yet. He also wondered if Jaune had noticed the confetti that was falling out of a large tear in his sleeves.

* * *

In battle, Pyrrha often used her semblance to aid her in two different ways.

Firstly, she would attempt to magnetize her opponent's weapons. If the opponent had a high quality weapon that didn't use impure metals, this usually meant that she could take full control of the battlefield. At that point, this usually meant that the rest of the battle was a simple performance that she could choreograph as she pleased.

Of course, there had been cases where Pyrrha had found herself unable to magnetize her opponent's weapon. It wasn't uncommon for fighters to use strange weapons that were made out of stone or wood, or simply elected to use their bare knuckles.

Pyrrha's muscles tensed as she landed on the ground, ready to launch herself forward again in an instant. She had to fight the urge to wipe the sweat off her brow. Unfortunately, she had just killed a King Taijitu and its blood was covering her arms, seeing as she was forced to use her hands to kill it without the use of her main weapon, Milo. While she knew that the Grimm blood would completely evaporate within minutes, she paled at the thought of meeting Jaune with her forehead smeared in the gooey black blood of her latest opponent.

As she stepped down and launched herself forwards once again, she focused on the weak magnetic pulses that Milo gave off. Satisfied that she was going the right way, she felt heart beating faster as the pulses grew stronger.

In battle, the second way that she utilised her Semblance was to manipulate her own weapons. Unlike her ability to magnetize her opponent's weapons, she had no problems with controlling Milo or Akouo as she had them built out of high quality metals that had a high magnetic conductivity. As such, seeing she had used Milo to pin Jaune against a tree - she couldn't stop herself from blushing at the imagery - Milo was currently acting as a beacon, signaling out Jaune's location to her.

The magnetic pulses of Milo grew in intensity at a frightening pace, and Pyrrha vaguely registered that she had never moved so fast before in her life. Her heartbeat quickened further as she moved closer. Her breath grew short and she started pant. She didn't think it was because she was tired.

As she rounded the corner, the sight of her beautiful blonde angel made her heart flutter. The sight of the short-haired girl in front of him made her heart stop.

No, no, no. How had someone else found him first? Pyrrha cursed under her breath as she realized the truth. Of course, other people would want to partner up with Jaune. What kind of girl wouldn't want to pair up with such a charming man?

"Alright, partner, let's go find those ruins, shall we?" Jaune's beautiful voice spoke out, making her shiver and as she hid backed herself up behind the nearest tree to support her weak legs.

"I suppose we should." The lower voice surprised her. Peeking out from behind the tree, she had to reconsider her first assessment of the girl's gender. Unfortunately, the androgynous face didn't help her decide whether he was actually male. "Let's get going, Jaune."

Pyrrha wanted to give a short sigh of relief when she heard the voice again, this time identifying it as being unmistakably male. She desperately wanted to relax when she realized that with a male partner, the position of Jaune's romantic partner was still open. She wanted to recognize that while she hadn't been able to claim the status of being Jaune's huntress partner, nobody else would have the inherent advantage in the inevitable race to acquire Jaune's affections. Why did she still feel so threatened and jealous?

She felt her Aura straining as she took damage from some unknown source. Looking down, she saw that her fingernails were threatening to bite into her skin as she clenched her fist.

Her eyes narrowed as Jaune turned his back from his partner and started to walk away. While a small part of her was focused on following Jaune's cute butt, most of her attention was focused on how determined his partner looked as he gazed upon Jaune's gorgeous figure.

Pyrrha gritted her teeth and stepped out from behind her hiding tree. "Hello," she shouted out as she walked towards them. The two turned their attention towards her and she cursed as she got a closer look at the partner's face and was forced to admit how pretty he was.

She had a feeling that he would be the toughest opponent that she had ever faced.

* * *

 **A few notes about this chapter:**

 **\- Originally, I wanted to make this chapter little longer, but I realized that the little Pyrrha section would be a pretty good ending. Hopefully I'll get through initiation quickly.** **I swear, I usually write longer chapters. I only have one or two things I need to establish in the initiation "episodes" so I should be done in another chapter or two.**

 **\- I know nothing about concussions. Don't crucify me because I used cartoon logic to make Jaune crazy and delusional because he hit his head.**

 **\- I like the idea of every single person having their own personalized Aura activation chant.**

 **\- My little headcanon is that Ren thinks a mile a minute, but just never talks because Nora fulfills that quota so easily. I guess it's true that there's usually a lot more narrative than dialogue no matter whose perspective I'm using.**

 **\- I really want to give each character their own voices. It'll probably be super easy to identify Pyrrha's voice, especially when she's interacting with Jaune, but one of my goals is to be able to attribute truly unique voices to each character so you'd be able to know exactly who's talking or thinking in every single scenario. I tried to pull off a "Ren sounding" perspective with the majority of this chapter, but it'll probably be a bit until I can master the techniques. Most of my perspectives (except Pyrrha's) have been in pretty similar voices.**

 **\- On a different note, I kind of wanted to put in a racist joke involving Pyrrha's desire to be the first to meet Jaune's eyes, and the fact that Ren has squinty eyes and an obvious Asian inspiration, but that's below me. Just to let you know, I'm Korean so I'm immune to crucifixion for thinking of Asian jokes. Please don't bully me.**

 **\- I'm still really hung up about the fact that Jaune wasn't Gwen Stacy-ed in RWBY.**

 **\- Also in case you haven't realized, Ren being Jaune's partner means that the teams will be mixed up. Had a lot of fun with making team names too. Some rejected sample names were ANNS (Anus), ARSN (Arson), and ARSS (Arse). I'm a comedic genius, I know.**


	4. An Arc's Promise

**IMPORTANT NOTE: I made an edit to Chapter Three. More details there.**

* * *

 **Hey guys, back from the dead. Couldn't write for the past few months. Final reports for projects, exams for courses, graduation, job hunting, etc. You know how it is. Still no job and still searching, but I am in a much more stable position than I was before so I should be able to write more often. Enjoy the chapter.**

* * *

 **A big thank you to my lovely assistant, Catastrophic Bacon, for helping me out as my beta reader. This chapter was going to be much worse and a lot shorter, but he helped me fix it up and made a lot of good suggestions.**

* * *

A small part of her still thought that it could be considered cheating if she used her Semblance to help her perform magic. Her teacher's Semblance wasn't suited to magic and Jaune hadn't even had his Aura unlocked to her knowledge, so among the three of them she was really the only one who had the extra edge in performance.

She thought back to one instance a long time ago, after her teacher had shown her a trick that required a new sleight of hand technique to perform. She had been able to copy it with ease by using her Semblance. While her teacher applauded her for her creativity, she had been upset at herself. Her teacher had taken a few months to develop that trick and it felt unfair that she could easily replicate it in a few hours.

She remembered that when she admitted this guilt out loud, her teacher had simply laughed at her.

 _"You really are like your father, aren't you?" her teacher had said. "Always wanting to ensure that everybody is equal, refusing to accept any alternatives."_

 _She had assumed that she was being scolded looked down at the ground in shame until she felt her teacher's hand touch her chin and push it up. When she looked up, her teacher had the widest grin on her face._

 _"Let me ask you a question," her teacher had said. "How did you perform that trick just now?"_

 _"I shuffled the deck of cards."_

She shuffled the deck of cards and the small crowd stared intently. There was a nervous energy in the air and the children at the front of the crowd leaned forward, practically vibrating with excitement. She simply smiled back and waved her hand in the air, making the motion as unnecessary and as flowery as possible.

 _"And after I used misdirection with my free hand, I slipped a small packet of fire dust into the hand with the deck."_

She looked around for any sign that the crowd had noticed. There were no whispers or fingers pointing in her direction as far as she could tell.

 _"Then I activated my Semblance and the fire dust at the same time, making it look like I lit the deck on fire, but tossing it in one of my pockets instead and quickly taking the signed card from my sleeve, all behind the cover of the flames."_

The crowd gasped as a huge spout of fire erupted from the tips of her fingers, much larger and flashier than what she had shown her teacher years before. She had the card ready in her hand using one quick motion, but the flames hadn't died down so she elected to keep her hand in a fist, protecting the card from burning up. The flames licked against her Aura, but didn't burn her.

 _Her teacher laughed and clapped twice. "That was marvellous!" her teacher had said. From beside her, Jaune had clapped along with her._

 _"Yeah," he said. "It really did look like real magic!"_

After the flames died down, she opened her hand to reveal the signed card to the crowd. There weren't that many people in the crowd, but she couldn't believe how loud their cheers were. A joyous laughter threatened to burst from her throat and it took all of her willpower to force it down, to keep up her perfectly silent stage persona. She smiled back at them instead, bowing and blowing kisses.

 _Her teacher paused for a second and burst out with an uncontrollable laughter a second later. "I couldn't have said it any better, Jaune!" she had exclaimed. "To be perfectly honest, it doesn't matter whether you think it's cheating or not. What matters is what your audience thinks about it. Did you make your audience happy?"_

She had performed in many small towns already, but she could never get used to the shocked joy on people's faces whenever she performed a single magic trick for them. She let the cheers wash over her for a few more seconds, but when it showed no signs of slowing down, she clapped her hands twice and drew out a magic wand from her pocket.

She prepared to activate her Semblance and the ice dust within the wand. With a little use of her Semblance and a trick of the light with a makeshift mirror made of ice, she hoped the crowd would be on their feet.

Maybe they would even thank her with some ice cream.

* * *

Weiss hadn't known what to expect when she had woken up that morning. She knew that she would be taking her initiation test and like with every other test that she attempted, she had assumed that with a great amount of skill, knowledge, and grace, she would be able to overcome any barriers that would try to stop her from becoming a student of Beacon by the end of the day.

What she hadn't expected was for some flirtatious sleaze of a man to ruin her entire morning. When he had started to talk with Pyrrha in the locker room, she had given herself a moment to shut her eyes, take a deep breath, and think of a way to make him go away and leave them alone. Once she had opened her eyes again, she saw that the blond had taken out a flower and was offering it to Pyrrha.

Weiss had sighed internally at the bland display, but for some reason, Pyrrha had been completely enamoured. At first, Weiss hadn't planned to judge the girl for her tastes in men, but after the blond had continued to talk, it was getting harder not to do just that.

The way that he talked, like conversation to him was just a performance, like he assumed that he was a national treasure put on display, like he assumed that talking with him was a grand privilege. It wasn't an unfamiliar sight to see in the high society meetings that she participated in or even in some of the musical society, but a part of why she had gone to Beacon in the first place was so she could get away from that. As a result, watching the blond talk had almost been nauseating.

The start of initiation was a blessing in comparison. She hadn't expected to be thrown off a cliff by the most primitive launching system she had ever seen, but she had expected not to know to expect that. It was a test, after all. She knew that she would be expected to be prepared regardless.

And prepared she was. She had her glyphs, her aura, and her dust, and a simple fall wasn't enough to defeat her.

After landing on the ground, she had taken a few minutes to focus all of her attention into determining which way she should walk to reach the temple. With no one to distract her, she quickly decided on a direction and had started to walk.

At the time, she had expected to walk for a few more minutes, quickly find the temple, wait for a someone to arrive, make them her partner, grab one of the relics, and return to Beacon.

When she had stumbled onto a cave at the foot of a mountain, with several drawings carved beside its opening, she had let out a sigh of relief, grateful that she had stumbled across the temple so quickly and that at least one thing had turned out like she had expected. It had only taken a few steps into the cave for her to decide that fate had a grudge against her.

She instantly ran out of the cave with a Deathstalker hot on her heels.

Thankfully, her luck had seemed to turn around when she ran past a tree and into a large clearing. Initially she had cursed her luck as the trees that had been slowing down the Deathstalker were now absent, but the sight of a ruin in the distance gave her a small glimmer of hope. At first she was skeptical, but when she saw a group of brightly coloured figures waving frantically at her, she felt a wave of relief crash down on her when she realized that they were other students.

She had expected that she would be able to reach them before the Deathstalker could catch up to her. While she would admit that the Deathstalker was fast, with a generous use of her own speed glyphs she was much faster. She would be fine as long as nothing slowed her down, and in this large and empty clearing, she hadn't expected that anything could slow her down.

And like the rest of her day, her expectations had been systematically crushed when a rain of arrow-like feathers rained down around her, courtesy of a giant Nevermore.

At that moment, she had fully expected to die. Fortunately for her, the pattern had continued. Instead of the blinding pain of death by stinger, she had heard the sound of gunshots and saw a flash of green before she was whisked off of her feet and was carried off, far away from the Deathstalker. Looking up, she saw the worried pink eyes of a young man who gave her a reassuring smile as he set her down and gave her short nod. Looking past him, she saw Pyrrha, who smiled and waved once at her before continuing to shoot the Deathstalker. Looking beside Pyrrha, she saw a tuft of short blond hair and she instantly diverted her attention towards the opposite direction.

After facing the ruins, she had noticed there were four girls who either waved in her direction, or ignored her arrival. Red, Black, Yellow, and Orange. Doing some mental math in her head and realizing that one of the people there didn't have a partner yet, she had nervously asked her saviour about who it was.

He had simply pointed in the direction of Pyrrha, but she had expected that it was a cruel joke, that the young man would reveal that he was actually pointing at the sleazy blond if she dared to hope. Thus unintentionally abusing the pattern of the day with her expectation, she locked her fate into having the champion fighter as her partner.

Some time while she was on her knees, making a prayer of thanks to whatever god controlled her fate, the group had realized that Pyrrha wouldn't be able to hold back the Deathstalker for much longer and decided retreating would be the safest option.

Riding off the high of not being paired with the blond, she had followed the group with a giddy excitement as they ran away from the incoming Nevermore and Deathstalker. Some of that giddiness faded when the Nevermore separated the eight-person group into two, leaving her, the pink-eyed student, Pyrrha, and the sleazy blond to fight the Deathstalker with their backs facing a precarious cliff.

Then the blond had spoken up.

He had claimed that he had a plan, and immediately started barking orders. Ren and Pyrrha were ordered to rush past the Deathstalker and pepper the legs on its left side with gunfire while Weiss was to stay behind him and wait for his signal. While the vagueness of her role in this plan and the lack of explanation on what he would be doing left Weiss feeling a bit concerned, after Pyrrha and the pink-eyed student, Ren, had immediately nodded and rushed off she quickly decided that she would follow suit and trust in his judgement.

When he confidently drew his sword and gave the Deathstalker a grin, she hoped that he would turn out to be more than just a cheap flirt, contrary to her first impression of him. Her hopes quickly died a horrible death, when she saw him doing some strange ritual. He put his sword in one of his belt loops, held out his sheath, and asked the Deathstalker to inspect it to make sure that it was empty.

And just like her expectations, she learned that hope was not a thing to be trusted.

"What on earth do you think you're doing?" she shrieked, drowning out the sound of gunfire and the cries of the Deathstalker that was slowly making its way in their direction.

"Oh do you want to look a bit closer, Weiss?" he asked, turning to face her with a wide grin that seemed a bit too manic for her to feel safe. She shrivelled back even further when she realized that she had never given him her name. "See? The scabbard's empty, right?"

It was clear this man was a lunatic.

"But now, after I wave my hand and say a magic word-"

"Jaune?" Ren shouted, barely heard over the screeching of the Deathstalker as it rushed straight towards her. "I think it's angry. If you're going to do something, you should do it quickly."

"Presto!"

A large spout of flame erupted from the empty scabbard and the Deathstalker screeched, skittering to a halt to avoid the damage. Unfortunately for it and fortunately for them, the bullet-hole ridden legs on its left side didn't seem to be able to keep up with the sudden change in momentum and it stumbled forwards, falling past Weiss and Jaune and falling into the giant chasm behind them.

A short silence followed as the flames started to die down, revealing a small bouquet of flowers at the end of his scabbard.

"I am Jaune the Magnificent. Thank you for watching!" Jaune shouted, making Weiss jump at the suddenness of it.

He gave her another manic grin and she had to consider the idea of backing away. She knew that she was standing at the edge of a cliff, but she honestly couldn't decide if dying was a better alternative to interacting with this madman.

* * *

"Ozpin!"

"Rusted. Golden. Sky," Ozpin said into the scroll, keeping his voice as clear and neutral as possible.

"What are you- ugh. Broken silver moon." The voice on the other end gave a frustrated growl. "Enough of that, Ozpin. It's an emergency!"

"Which is why you must confirm your code words, Aurelius. The emergency contact number is something that could be abused by our enemies. You know that," Ozpin said firmly. "Diamond. Unite. Hum."

"Ruby distant song. Ozpin! I don't have time for this."

"It's just one more line, Aurelius," Ozpin said, a bit quicker than he had intended. While he couldn't see the man's face, the nervous energy in the Huntsman's voice was almost infectious. "Bead ocean father."

"Five one three."

"Confirmed. Aurelius what-"

"Release my son." While he hadn't yelled or raised his voice at all, the raw emotion in Aurelius's voice shocked Ozpin into silence for a short moment.

When he finally managed to gather his thoughts again, Ozpin gave a great sigh. "Aurelius, are you meaning to tell me that you used the emergency contact number in order to request for your son to be pulled out of my school?"

"It's not a request, Ozpin." Again, the raw emotion in his voice was something that Ozpin wasn't used to hearing from the normally kind man. "Get my son out of your school. Now."

"Aurelius. Listen to yourself. You're angry and you need to calm down."

A short bark of a laugh sounded out from the scroll, though Ozpin couldn't detect any sort of humour in it. "Well congratulations for being able to read me, Ozpin. My son, my untrained son has been accepted into a school meant for Hunters, after all. How on earth could you tell that I was angry?"

"I'll be honest Aurelius. I don't think I've ever heard you use sarcasm before. It's rather odd and it doesn't suit you very well."

A deathly silence permeated the air.

"You think this is funny Ozpin?" Aurelius asked, practically spitting the bitter question out. "You sent a helpless civilian into Grimm territory on his own."

"He's not quite as helpless as you think, Aurelius. Jaune has proven himself to be quite the tactician in the battlefield. He managed to lead his team into victory against an adult Deathstalker."

A relatively less deathly silence permeated the air.

"R… really?" Aurelius asked, his voice oozing with reluctant pride.

Ozpin smiled at the familiarity of the situation. It had happened twice in his lifetime already, once when he had still been a professor and his good friend Marcus Arc had called him, calling in an old favour to help guide Aurelius through his years at Beacon, and once more when that same Aurelius Arc had called his scroll - though it hadn't been through an emergency contact line that time - asking him to protect his baby, Oriana Arc.

"Yes, Aurelius," Ozpin said, imagining the sight of Aurelius Arc's lips twitching upwards as he struggled to stifle his smile. "It was an amazing sight to witness. While most students would have opted to use brute force and panic when they realize its not enough, Jaune used his entire team's strengths to their advantage even though he had only met them mere minutes before."

"He really commanded his own team? But he's so shy! I know that he hasn't had many friends ever since that one girl moved away from our town when he was just a kid… What was her name again?" Ozpin had no idea. "Oh whatever, I'm getting off topic. What was his team like?"

As he imagined the goofy uninhibited grin on Aurelius's face as he excitedly awaited Ozpin's tale, Ozpin couldn't help but smile a bit himself. There was a reason why Aurelius had been one of his favourite students when he still taught classes. "Well, it's quite the line-up actually. You might recognize the name, Pyrrha Nikos for one."

Ozpin heard a short gasp. "I do! She's the one from the cereal boxes isn't she?"

It took a moment for Ozpin to remember that Ms. Nikos had indeed been featured as a mascot of a children's cereal, and he was a bit caught off guard by the fact that out of all her achievements, that was the one that Aurelius had pointed out.

"Yes, that Pyrrha Nikos. It seems like she's quite enamoured by him as well." Ozpin wondered about whether it was unethical or strange to be sharing gossip on his students like this, but he hoped that the topic would be enough to distract Aurelius from the real reason that he had called. From the sharp gasp that came from the other end, he could guess that it was enough.

"Are you sure?"

"I'm positive," Ozpin replied, now with an extreme gratefulness for the fact that this conversation was taking place on an untappable emergency connection. "After they met up in Emerald Forest-" Aurelius sighed and mumbled about how the beautiful setting always seemed so romantic "-they talked for a moment and at this point, it seemed like they had already been acquainted. Ms. Nikos had started to blush as soon as she started to talk to young Jaune."

There was a short silence before Aurelius burst out laughing. "Ah, the old Arc charm work fast, don't they."

"They certainly worked faster than yours did, Aurelius," Ozpin teased, ignoring the whine that came from the other end of the phone. "After talking with her for a few minutes, he offered her a flower and placed it behind her ear." Ozpin couldn't see most of the act due to the awkward angling of the cameras, but judging from Lie Ren's shocked expression and her crimson blush that blossomed onto her face, making a perfect blending of colour between her hair, face, and the flower, he assumed that the display had been very bold.

The scroll suddenly turned silent.

"Aurelius?"

"Enough about Ms. Nikos," came the sudden reply. Ozpin couldn't help but feel like the tone of Aurelius's voice had somehow dropped by an entire shade. "What about her other teammates?"

Ozpin paused and tried to find out what exactly could have been the cause of Aurelius's sudden mood change, but couldn't decide on what exactly had set the man off. He elected to continue instead, hoping the conversation would bring his spirits back up.

"You might also recognize this name. Weiss Schnee?"

The reply was an instantaneous almost-silence, tarnished by the little grumbles that Aurelius started to make. "You mean from the Schnee Dust Company?" he asked, though his voice was a bit rougher than Ozpin had expected.

"The very same." Aurelius made a short groan and Ozpin raised an eyebrow at the strange reaction. "Is anything wrong, Aurelius?"

"No, no, not really," came the immediate reply. "It's just… I mean there's the whole thing with the underpaid Faunus labour that doesn't sit too well with me, but…"

"I hope you would take care not to judge a person based on their name, Aurelius," Ozpin said, not bothering to hide the disappointment in his voice.

"No, I don't mean that, Professor. Of course I wouldn't actually judge her for that. She isn't in charge of the SDC and I'm actually a fan of her singing. Got one of her CDs." Ozpin gave a short sigh of relief. "It's just a reaction to the SDC name. I have somewhat of a personal vendetta against them."

This came as a surprise to Ozpin. Not only was it difficult to truly get on Aurelius's bad side, "but your fighting style doesn't require the use of any dust, does it?" He asked, finishing his thought out loud. "I couldn't imagine how you could have a personal grudge against a company whose primary export is something that you never use."

There was a short pause, where Aurelius had probably shook his head, forgetting that it wasn't a video call. "Normally you would be correct, Professor. But the SDC has been harassing my family for years. Every so often, we'll get fliers and random packages of dust in the mail. At first I thought that Oriana hadn't changed her mailing address after moving out of the house, but she insisted that it wasn't her. Honestly I think I would've gone crazy if it weren't for the fact that Jaune kept offering to talk with the post office to send them back. Even keeps the dust in his room so it doesn't get in our way. But enough about the SDC. How is Ms. Schnee? Has she fallen for my son's Arc charm as well?"

"And finally, there's his partner, Lie Ren."

When Ms. Schnee had been called up to the podium along with her team, she had let out a terrified scream when Ozpin revealed that Jaune would be the leader of team JSPR. Though she quickly insisted that she was fine, Ozpin noticed that Ms. Schnee's nails were horribly chewed up and that she would actively position herself so she never had a direct line of sight with the young Arc. Ozpin didn't want to bring it up and hurt the father's pride.

"Lie Ren?"

And thankfully Aurelius didn't seem to notice the sudden change in topic. "Yes, Lie Ren. He hails from Mistral and-"

"Oh so Lie Ren isn't a girl's name?"

Ozpin blinked twice. "No, it isn't." When no reply came from the other end of the scroll, Ozpin coughed into his fist. "Anyways, Mr. Lie hails from Mistral. His hometown was invaded by the Grimm when he was younger and he has pursued the life of a Huntsman ever since."

Aurelius sighed. "That's terrible."

"Indeed it is," Ozpin said. "But that is how it is, Aurelius. Unfortunately, many of us do not walk the path of the Hunter for the sake of the people. Some walk the path out of necessity or revenge. Some do it for glory and pride. There are a few Hunters that choose this life out of a love for the people and a sense of duty to protect them, but those are a dying breed, Aurelius. That is why you are special. That is why Jaune is special."

Aurelius growled at that, but Ozpin smiled and continued on.

"Which is why I will not release Jaune unless he leaves out of his own volition."

"Ozpin," Aurelius growled.

"What is it, Aurelius?" Ozpin asked, calmly taking a sip of his coffee, making sure that he made a sipping sound that would be loud enough to hear through the scroll.

"Give me back my son." Ozpin froze mid sip. Aurelius Arc did not shout. He wasn't holding back his anger either. Aurelius Arc's voice was weak and shaky. Ozpin did not doubt for a second that tears were forming in Aurelius's eyes as he begged for his son. A chill rode down Ozpin's spine at the unfamiliar sound.

He set his mug down and pushed it out of arms reach. "Aurelius," he said. "What's going on? You weren't like this when your daughter enrolled. What makes Jaune so different?"

Aurelius sighed. It was a sigh that spoke of how tired and nervous the man was. "I never taught him anything, Professor."

So this was about being worried about Jaune's insufficient training then? "Nobody would fault you for that Aurelius," Ozpin said. "You're one of the best Huntsmen in Vale. It's any wonder you get time to visit your family at all."

Aurelius sighed again. This time it spoke of frustration. " You don't understand Professor. It's not just that I didn't teach him anything. He never went to combat school either. Never had a tutor and to my knowledge, he didn't do any training on his own."

"Well, I'll admit that I'm impressed. He performed spectacularly in initiation and I can only see him growing from here," Ozpin said. He let out a breath of relief at the knowledge that Aurelius was just being skeptical of his genius son. "I suspect that he will perform admirably."

Aurelius let out a short bark of humourless laughter. "That's exactly what I'm afraid of," he said. "Tell me Ozpin, did anything about my boy catch your eye?"

The change in topic was unexpected, but Ozpin didn't hesitate to answer. "As I've mentioned before, he seems to have the qualities of a good leader. Quite adaptable, efficient, and he has a sort of charisma that made his team instantly trust in his orders despite only having met him hours before. I will admit that he doesn't seem to have a high combat ability on his own, but that only makes sense after hearing that he was never trained. Fortunately his Semblance will probably ensure that he can hold his own at the very least, and what better place to learn how to fight than at a combat school?"

"His semblance?" Aurelius asked, ignoring the rest of Ozpin's analysis.

"Yes his Semblance," Ozpin replied, noting the confusion in Aurelius's voice but ultimately deciding not to comment on it. "A quite impressive one at that. I cannot grasp what it is exactly, but after seeing him float in the air and summon a great spout of flame from his scabbard, I can only assume it has something to do with heat."

For what seemed to be the millionth time, the other end of the line fell silent. Ozpin didn't think that he said anything wrong this time, but he waited patiently regardless.

"His semblance, huh?" Aurelius muttered. "So you don't know…"

"Is something wrong, Aurelius?"

"Tell me, Professor. Will you keep Jaune safe?" Aurelius asked.

"Absolutely," Ozpin said, a bit put off that his question had been ignored, but automatically giving the obvious answer regardless. "A Huntsman's life is wrought with danger so I cannot give any guarantees, but I promise that I do everything in my power to ensure the safety of all the students in my academy, including your son's."

"Do you promise to not put him in any unnecessary danger?"

"Aurelius, what is this about?" Ozpin asked.

"Do you," Aurelius said, ignoring Ozpin's question once again. "Promise not to involve him in in anything dangerous?"

The obvious answer was on the tip of Ozpin's tongue, but something stopped him from actually saying it out loud. Maybe it was the way that Aurelius said it, or the unusual protectiveness that the man seemed to have for his son, but Ozpin couldn't help but feel that his next words might cause him a lot of trouble if he spoke recklessly.

Despite that, he still gave his original answer. The alternative was simply unreasonable.

"I promise," Ozpin said. "I will not keep him from fighting with the Grimm, but I will not involve him in any unnecessary risks if I can help it."

The phone went silent. For a moment, Ozpin thought that Aurelius had finally ended the call, but a light breathing could still be heard.

"Ozpin," Aurelius finally said. "After many years of being a friend to the Arcs, I assume you know how seriously a promise is to our family." It was a statement rather than a question.

"I'm aware," Ozpin replied. "An Arc never goes back on his word." It was a familiar phrase that he had heard many times before in his life. To this day, it had always been proven to be true.

"Then know this, Ozpin," Aurelius said. "I know that you aren't an Arc, Ozpin, so I don't expect you to view your promise as seriously as I would." Ozpin made to protest, but Aurelius continued. "So I will make my own promise to you."

"I swear on my name and my life. I will kill you if you ever use my son as a pawn for your little games. Goodbye, Ozpin."

There was a click, followed by the final and the longest silence of the night.

* * *

 **IMPORTANT NOTE: Just in case you didn't read it at the top of the chapter, here it is again. I made an edit to Chapter Three. More details there.**

* * *

 **Author Notes:**

 **JSPR is pronounced Jasper. It's a pretty weird colour. If you look it up on google, you'll get this muddy grey colour, but in wikipedia it's listed as being red. Jasper/jasperite is also a mineral that's commonly found in red. But sometimes it's found in green… or black… or brown… or orange. I would like to say that I chose the colour for this chaotic and uncertain nature of its true form, but I really just chose it because the name fit. The alternative was APWL for Apple. A bit of a stretch, isn't it?**

 **You might've noticed that Ozpin refers to Ren as Mr. Lie instead of Mr. Ren. I always thought that Ren's given name is Ren and not Lie due to his Chinese inspiration and the fact that everyone calls him Ren. With the introduction of Li Ren and An Ren, we know that isn't true, but I still think it's stupid so I'm pretending that never happened.**

 **Hey Korzark? Why is Weiss the fourth teammate? Why isn't it Nora? Why isn't it literally anybody else? Those are all very valid questions for you to have, readers. Thank you for asking.**

* * *

 **Trivia:**

 **Marcus Arc's name is inspired by Marcus Aurelius (a Roman Emperor) for obvious reasons. Marcus means "dedicated to Mars" so the colour association there is to the colour Red. If you think that's a bit too much of a stretch, remember that Mercury Black's father's name is Marcus Black. So suck it.**


	5. One Team, Four Agendas

**Really short chapter this time around. I was going to go a lot longer originally, but this chapter ended at a pretty nice place and I would rather release short chapters more often than hold onto completed sections and make you readers wait for longer chapters with nothing in between.  
**

 **Tried a few new things here. Turned out meh in my opinion, but maybe you guys will enjoy. Fun tidbits of info at the AN section at the bottom if you want to stick around for that.**

 **As always, a shoutout and a thank you to my Beta Editor Catastrophic Bacon. He didn't see the very very last section, but since it's so short I didn't really feel like waiting for the time zone difference so he could look it over.  
**

* * *

Old habits died hard.

Even though yesterday had been the most tiring and the most exciting day of his life, Jaune's biological alarm clock refused to let him sleep in any later than six o' clock in the morning. He felt a tinge of surprise when he looked around to see a largely unfamiliar room, but at the sight of his three newest friends the memories of the initiation surged back into his brain and he stifled his urge to yawn out loud, lest he wake them up.

After slowly shuffling out of his bed making as little sound as possible, he knelt down, leaning his body over so that his face was almost touching the soft carpet that covered the entire floor, and reached underneath his bed. He felt around blindly until his hand met something solid, grabbed around until he could get a solid grip on its plastic handle, and pulled a suitcase out from underneath his bed.

He looked around once more to make sure that none of his friends had moved. There was some mumbling that came from the girl's side of the room, but Pyrrha had been mumbling ever since he had woken up, so he suspected that she was just mumbling in her sleep.

At the very least, even if Pyrrha was actually awake, he could turn his back to her so she couldn't see what he was doing.

Jaune turned his attention back to his suitcase, turned the dials to the correct number combination, and pulled at the latch, making sure to keep his hand above the lid so it wouldn't bang against his bed when it sprung open. The suitcase lid hit his palm with a dull thud and he looked around to see if anyone had woken up. He listened for a few seconds and only heard the same muted mumbling.

After slowly letting the suitcase open all the way, he reached inside and pulled out a slightly smaller chest. Finally, Jaune took off his bracelet, untied a few tiny knots, and peeled away the small key that he always kept attached to the bracelet. He pushed it gently into the chest, turned it to hear a small click, and lifted the lid of the chest.

Inside the chest was a variety of different items, all arranged very neatly within the small space.

There were a few dust canisters, all color coded to ensure that he would never mix different types of dust while storing them, and there was a large leather-bound book. Both of these things were given to him by his magic teacher when she had moved away, taking Jaune's childhood friend along with her.

Through the tearful goodbyes, she had explained to him that even though she wouldn't be able to teach him anymore, the book would be the second best way for him to learn. The book contained diagrams that detailed every single sleight of hand trick that she could remember, along with a few guides and methods to perform some of her own favourite tricks. The latter half of the book was apparently empty so he could fill it up with the tricks that he invented on his own. He never found out if she was joking or not since he had always shut the book closed whenever he finished the sleight of hand section. While he didn't have any trouble with developing his basics, he had never found out the method to his teacher's favourite tricks before, and he felt like using the book was almost like cheating.

The dust canisters were a going away gift from his childhood friend, along with the chest itself, to ensure that he wouldn't blow himself up carelessly for the fifth time.

He gave a small smile at the memories but pushed them into the corners of his mind for now as he reached for some of the other contents in the chest.

He ignored the cheat dice, the painted cards, and the double-sided coins and simply grabbed a regular deck of cards from the corner. After a short moment of consideration, he grabbed a pair of large coins and closed the chest, took out the key, shut the suitcase, spun the dials to randomise the code, and shoved the entire thing back under his bed.

As he pushed his key back into his bracelet, he grabbed his school uniform and started to walk towards the bathroom where he started to change out of his sleeping onesie. Within a few minutes, he was leaving the JSPR dorm room, wondering about where he could do his daily sleight of hand practicing in secret.

Maybe the library? If he remembered correctly, the library was open during all hours and even if there were other people there this early in the morning, as long as he stayed out of sight, the flipping of his cards would probably be mistaken for the turning of pages.

"Library it is," he whispered to himself.

He stopped for one second to close the dorm room door gently behind him but failed to notice the pair of pink eyes that tracked him as he turned his back.

* * *

Old habits died hard.

Even though yesterday had been the most tiring and the most exciting day of his life, living with Nora for a majority of his life had instilled an acute sense of danger and even the slightest noises were enough to wake him up. Waking up to the sound of something being dragged across the floor, Ren's eyes shot open though he didn't make any other movements.

It took a brief second for him to remember that such caution was unnecessary, as Nora was sleeping in an entirely different room and he doubted that any of his new dormmates and team members would be the type to pull pranks. He heard a masculine sigh, telling him that Jaune was unexpectedly an early riser, and was about to allow himself to fall back to sleep, but then he heard a curious sound.

He shifted his head, very slightly and very quietly so it wouldn't be noticed, into a better position so he could look in the direction that the sound was coming from. The curtains were closed and the sun was barely rising, but the dim light was enough for Ren to see Jaune's figure kneeling down beside what seemed to be a small wooden chest of sorts. Ren couldn't see its contents from his position laying down on his bed, but he could hear a quiet tinkling of something metal inside.

He considered moving his head a bit so he could more easily see whatever Jaune was working on, but before he could wrestle with the guilt of what was essentially spying on his new partner, Jaune closed his chest, pushed it into a small suitcase, and pushed it under his bed with his foot.

As Jaune got up, Ren closed his eyes so Jaune wouldn't notice that he'd been watching, but he felt a tinge of surprise at the soft creaking sound of the door handle being turned.

Opening his eyes again, he watched as the door was closed shut, gently and deliberately so it wouldn't make much noise.

After a few minutes of deliberation, Ren got up. He'd been wanting to ask Jaune a few questions in private anyways. Now was a good a time as ever.

* * *

Old habits died hard.

Pyrrha had been expecting that she would have to give up her old habits if she ever wanted to truly fit in within the student community at Beacon Academy. Her usual training schedule usually involved very little time for _fun_ activities, since her old coach classified "sleeping" as a hobby that she should indulge in during her scheduled hours of free time, which were conveniently placed between the hours of 10 PM to 4 AM.

However, she knew that in order to fit into the society of Beacon Academy and appear as normal as possible to her angel, Jaune Arc, she would have to make some changes.

That was the reason why she had forced herself to sleep in so late. Six o' clock in the morning? Eight hours of sleep?! She knew for sure that her old coach would have a heart attack if she ever found out. Pyrrha had actually planned to sleep in until seven, but even that daunting task proved to be too much for her.

So at around 6 AM, Pyrrha opened her eyes and got up. Admittedly, the sleep had been nice, filled with dreams of short blonde hair, bright blue eyes, and red flowers (a small vase sat on top of her bedside cupboard, filled with a pair of red and yellow flowers), but even so, she couldn't help but wonder how others could torture themselves with so much sleep on a daily basis.

In a few minutes, she would blame her drowsiness for not noticing as soon as she woke up, but it took her a few seconds to scan the room and realize that something was wrong. There was only one other body in the room, Weiss her partner, who was sleeping peacefully. The other two beds were empty.

Pyrrha didn't know what to think. With her sleep-addled mind, she didn't feel focused enough to draw any conclusions from this new piece of information, but she did know one thing.

Jaune was not in the room, and Ren was also not in the room. She was inexperienced in love but there was no way to know if Ren was in the same boat. She had assumed that these things would take time, but what if Ren had already made his move? What if she had severely underestimated her greatest rival?

She barely registered the fact that she was out in the hallway, with nothing but an oversized shirt, shorts, and no shoes. The door swung out violently as she rushed out with no care for being silent, slamming into the outside wall with an impact that echoed through the hallway.

Looking left and right frantically, she could see no sign of either Jaune or Ren.

* * *

Old habits died hard.

On the other hand, if a habit doesn't exist, there's no need to kill it in the first place.

Weiss slept like a log.

* * *

After what seemed like the fiftieth trick shuffle in a row, Jaune sighed as he flipped the top card over to reveal the Ace of Spades yet again.

While he deeply understood the need for practice, after yesterday's events he just couldn't keep himself from wanting more.

Danger! Excitement! Drama! Yesterday had it all. Even through all the chaos, he had somehow been able to think of a plan to kill the Deathstalker and to top it all off, he had been able to add his own magical flair to it.

The sound of fluttering cards pierced through the silence of the library. Jaune looked down, surprised that his grip had been so loose that his deck could just fall out of his hands, but when he bent over to pick them up, he realized his hands were too shaky to grab them properly. It was at that moment that he realized that his face hurt too, stretched out by his massive grin.

Blushing, he looked around frantically, hoping that nobody was watching him. Even when he looked around and saw that he was safe, he covered his mouth with his hands to hide the smile. He kept it there for what seemed like a good minute, but his elated excitement refused to die.

He tried to think about bad things, like Bullheads, piano recitals, and old men telling exaggerated stories about what they were like when they were young. But his thoughts kept wandering back to his latest performance.

It had exceeded all expectations, even his own. He hadn't expected to be the star of the show, only a distraction. When he thought of the plan to ignite all of the hidden fire dust in his scabbard, he hadn't expected the great pillar of flame to scare the Deathstalker so much that it fell into the ravine. His initial plan had been to ask Weiss to freeze the ground underneath it at the exact same time that he distracted it, causing it to lose its balance where Pyrrha and Ren could come in from behind and push it into the ravine with their combined strength.

The fact that it became a solo performance? All the more magnificent.

He let out a forlorn sigh and leaned over his desk, placing his elbows onto the table and resting his chin in his open palm. He drew back in quick surprise when he felt something smooth and cool fall onto his face, but when he looked into his palm, there was a single card there.

With his other hand, he picked it up and analyzed it, turning it around with his fingers. The Ace of Spades. With another sigh, he let the card drop from his hands and propped his chin onto his now empty palms.

Once upon a time, he'd been so happy whenever he executed such a simple move. Even when he'd gotten comfortable enough with the motions to claim that he'd nearly mastered the move, every time he'd reveal the Ace of Spades, he'd let out an internal cheer.

But now? With the knowledge that having a gasping audience was so much better? Knowing that he could and has pulled off stunt that were larger than life?

He shook his head. He'd eaten from the tree of knowledge, and he'd been cursed with knowing that he could always do so much more.

He groaned and started to kick away the cards around his feet. He thought better of it and pushed himself away from his desk, making enough space so he could push himself out of his chair and kneel down to start gathering up his dropped cards.

Looking at the crumpled state of some of the cards and the worn out edges of most, he conceded that he would probably have to buy a new deck soon. In either case, he continued to gather his cards in a silent admittance that he would have to stick with using this practice deck, and would have to stick with small magic for now.

After looking around one last time to see if there were any cards he'd missed, he got up and started to head out of the library, stowing his deck away into his pocket.

As he pulled open the library door and stepped out into the hallway, he was not prepared for something hard to crash into his side.

Jaune stumbled to the side and lost his footing, tripping over his own feet and crashing onto the floor. While his head struck the floor with a dull thudding sound, Jaune was more than protected by his newly found Aura. He was simply surprised at the sudden impact.

"Oh, did I hit someone?" a low voice said from above him. There was a loud clank of metal on stone. "My apologies my dear boy, I simply did not see you over this cage. Are you alright?"

Jaune looked up to see a older man peering over him, his grey moustache mostly covering his mouth but not to the point where the concerned frown was hidden from view. Looking down, Jaune could swear he recognized the distinct burgundy jacket that the man was wearing as well.

"Oh dear, it seems like we might have a little bit of an incident on our hands," the older man mused.

"Oh no, sir," Jaune shouted once he realized that he hadn't said anything in the past few seconds. "I'm just fine, sir. Just a bit surprised." He winced after he said it, realizing that in his panic his voice was loud enough to bounce around Beacon's empty hallways.

He needn't have worried after the older man's booming laughter make his shouting seem like a whisper in comparison. "Fancy that!" The man laughed, even though Jaune couldn't really understand what was so funny. "A first year student still left standing after crossing paths with the mighty Peter Port!" He smiled and extended a hand out to Jaune, who was still sprawled over the floor. "Perhaps if I were using a real weapon, you may not have been so lucky."

At that moment, Jaune recognized the jovial old man as one of the teachers who had been standing at the doors during the team naming ceremony and he recognized the name as the teacher of his first upcoming class.

"Thank you, Professor P-" As he reached for the man's hand, something made a loud thud and squeal from beside him. "What?!" he shrieked.

"Ah, I see you've noticed my makeshift weapon," Port said, reaching down to grab Jaune's arm with one hand and reaching over to slam his fist twice on top of the large sheet-covered cube beside him. It made two loud clangs and whatever was inside quieted down.

"I-if I could ask, professor," Jaune stuttered. "What's in there?"

"Before I tell you, young man." Jaune felt something grab onto his shoulder and suddenly, his vision was filled by the professor's face. Somehow, through the squinted eyelids he could tell that the man's eyes were shining. "I was going to make this a surprise so I need you to promise me that you'll keep this a secret."

As Jaune nodded, the cube made an odd grunting sound and shook with an intense fervor.

"That, my dear boy, is an angry Grimm," Port said, jerking a thumb at the cube. "And it's also going to be the most exciting part of today's lesson plan."

As this new information flew into Jaune's brain, he tried to formulate a reply that could suit the situation. Running through some simulations, the first replies that he came up with ranged from, "Are you really a teacher," to "Help! Security!"

But then something unexpected happened. Something that both terrified and excited him.

He had an idea.

"Is there any way I can help?" he asked, matching his professor's crazed grin with his own.

* * *

Ren let the door close gently, closing the crack that he'd been using to watch Professor Port clap both his hands enthusiastically onto his team leader's shoulders.

While a part of him was disappointed that he'd missed his chance to confront his leader, a part of him was relieved at the fact that the chance was taken away from him. While he desperately wanted to ask Jaune about the mysterious actions that he'd done during initiation, a part of him didn't want to know the answers.

He was scared. As someone who would claim to have a strong sense of self and a good grasp on his emotions, this didn't come as a surprise to him. If he'd been brave enough, he might have confronted Jaune while he'd been doing nothing but shuffle cards at one of the library desks, even if it may have exposed the fact that Ren had followed him out of the dorm room.

Ren sighed and resolved to think about the matter more and pushed the door open a slight crack. While he doubted that Professor Port would be quiet enough so that he couldn't hear him with the door closed, it wouldn't hurt to check the hallways to make sure that the coast was clear. While a short scan of the hallways told him that Professor Port and Jaune were nowhere to be seen, that didn't mean that the hallways were empty.

His eyebrows furrowed in confusion, but he pushed open the doors regardless. "Pyrrha?" he asked as the redheaded girl spun around instantaneously in reaction to the sound of his voice. "What are you doing h-"

After living with Nora for years, Ren could easily claim that very few things could properly surprise him, but the beet-red look on Pyrrha's face confused him just as easily.

"Pyrrha?" he asked.

The only response he got was a shy smile before she spun around and ran down the hallway, towards the direction of their shared dorm room.

Ren scratched at his head in confusion, but the sight of Pyrrha in only her sleeping clothes - not quite fancy enough to be called pyjamas - reminded him that he needed to get changed into his uniform too. Though he didn't understand Pyrrha's actions, he followed her footsteps back to their room.

* * *

As Pyrrha sprinted back to the JSPR dorm room, she didn't bother to hide the wicked grin that spread across her face.

When she came across Jaune and another man talking right outside of the Beacon library, she'd almost assumed the worst if it weren't for the large bulk of Professor Port's body making it nearly impossible for her to confuse him for the enviously slim Ren.

She hadn't dared to show herself to Jaune in the state that she'd been in. After sprinting madly around the school, her entire body had been flushed from exhaustion and she was still barefoot and in her pyjamas. Regardless, her main concern was that Ren might have gotten an edge on her by sneaking after Jaune in the morning. Whether that turned out to be true or just a coincidence that both their beds had been empty when she woke up, the end result was that Ren wasn't with Jaune right now, so technically she hadn't lost any ground in the battle.

When Ren had spoken up from behind her, peeking out of the Beacon library doors and confirming her suspicions that he'd failed in his own attempts at stalking Jaune, she couldn't stop the victorious smirk that crept onto her face. She couldn't stop herself from giddily skipping away, letting it turn into a full sprint as she got closer to the JSPR dorm room.

If she could get there and take a short shower, she could be out and searching around for Jaune within minutes while Ren was left behind in the dust.

As she halted to a stop and flung her dorm room open, making a loud screeching sound despite her bare feet, she rushed inside, not willing to waste any time.

* * *

Unfortunately for Weiss, in the exciting events of the day and night before, she'd collapsed into bed without a second thought for her nightly habits. As such, she was doomed to sleep through the entire day as she'd forgotten to set up her alarm clock.

Fortunately for her, her sole female teammate made for a suitable replacement.

Weiss's eyes shot open at the sound of screeching tires and flailed around, trying to escape the incoming car crash.

Unfortunately for her, her flailing only led her to get her arms and legs tangled up during her attempted half-leap, half-dive away from danger.

She vaguely heard a "sorry," and the slamming of a door as her eyes opened wide and saw the wooden floor rushing towards her face.

* * *

 **Just as a disclaimer, this little announcement doesn't relate to "The Mystique of Jaune Arc" at all and will not interest a lot of you.**

 **To those of you who were fans of my other fic, "A New Set of Rules" I'm reviving it with a modified premise so watch out for that. There will be an announcement on the original fic so if you're following or favouriting that, there's no need to follow or favourite my author profile to keep track of when the new story's coming. Fun fact: After I start releasing the rewrite, I will legitimately make up 20% of the entirety of RWBYxFMA fics.**

 **Also, I'm writing an original on FictionPress under the same user ID. Just to warn you, in its current state I've only written one chapter and I legitimately think it sucks.**

* * *

 **Now for the real ANs on this chapter. Not much to say tbh.  
**

 **The very first chapter was going to go into a bit more of Jaune's backstory and childhood friend, but then I remembered that I'm supposed to be writing the funnys and that I should just get to the point.**

 **This chapter is almost 100% setup and vague foreshadowing for future chapters and story arcs to come so sorry**


	6. Falling Between the Cracks

**Oh god. This is the clear point where I start to embrace the crack-fiction. Buckle up everyone.**

 **Special thanks to Catastrophic Bacon for editing this for me, and a public apology to you for ignoring your comment that the last section of this chapter is one big WTF! And he's totally right. I may lose many followers and favourites because of that last part but I'll keep it because I'm too lazy to do a rewrite.**

 **Anyways. Enjoy.**

* * *

Ozpin was taking a pleasant walk around his campus. For the first time in months, he didn't feel the need to walk any faster, to get to the next faculty member and ensure that they'd completed the tasks he'd assigned, to speak with the cafeteria and janitorial staff and ensure that they'd stocked up properly on whatever they needed for the school's opening. For the first time in a while, he simply looked around for the sake of looking around, admiring the beauty and history that had been cultivated by the students, teachers, and headmasters before him.

Even though Glynda walked alongside him, neither of them spoke, neither willing to break the peaceful quiet that surrounded them.

Though that wasn't to say it was silent. A peaceful quiet never involved the complete lack of sound. Across the courtyard, he could both see and hear the gentle streams of water that flowed out from the giant fountain. He could hear the birds chirping softly. The clacking of Glynda's heels and his own cane was starting to provide a nice rhythm to their walk. Off in the distance, he heard a rising cacophony of panicked shouting, but that was no reason for him to lose his good mood.

He stopped in his tracks and watched as the small group of students ran past, noticing neither his nor Glynda's presence. He recognized them as team RYBN and three-quarters of team JSPR, two first-year teams that he'd recently named. Out of the corner of his eyes, he noticed his deputy headmistress looking down at her watch, no doubt noticing that there was only around a minute before classes started. She didn't speak up about it, so he felt no need to reply, lifting his mug of coffee to his lips instead.

People often envisioned peace as a complete state of tranquility, but in this case he was content with admitting that he enjoyed watching his students panic about their first days of class or whether they would pass their next exam or not. Though he would never admit it out loud when Glynda was in earshot, he even enjoyed watching students as they came back from a night of drinking down in Vale, assuming that they'd be stealthy enough in their return so none of the faculty noticed them.

He was happy to know that they were still so young and innocent that the anger of a teacher was still the scariest thing that they could think of.

He took another sip of coffee to hide the smile growing on his face as Glynda turned to him. She hadn't ruined the peaceful quiet by saying anything out loud, but the way that she pointed at her watch with one eyebrow raised, asked him if there weren't any punishments in order. He pointedly ignored her unspoken question and turned to watch the children reach the doors to one of the lecture buildings, scrambling to each grab a hold of the door handles and force it open. While he would still classify that level of panicked shouting as being peacefully quiet, in that moment he decided that he would definitely not classify certain things as being a part of any sort of quiet.

For example, if one of his senior teachers burst out of a building door, barreling over several students without a care in the world, when there were only five minutes before his class was supposed to start, yelling at the top of his lungs. Of course he would never consider that to be something peaceful.

Which is why he closed his eyes and desperately held onto his peace by pretending that a fat man wasn't rushing towards him in a dead sprint with his arms filled with a wide assortment of fruits, breads, and meats.

"Out of the way children!" the illusion roared. "I've got a class to teach!"

Ozpin shut his eyes even tighter.

"Oh, Ozpin, Miss Goodwitch." Ozpin took the opportunity to marvel at how it sounded like the source of the voice was coming closer at a breakneck speed. Illusions were surprisingly complex. "How are you two this fine morning?"

Finally accepting that he wasn't crazy, Ozpin opened his eyes and greeted the less preferable alternative. "Just fine, Peter," he said, using his free hand to discreetly pinch his thigh in a last ditch attempt to prove that this was a dream. "I'm doing just fine, Peter," he said, his voice leaking out a bit of frustration when he conceded to himself that this was, in fact, reality.

Peter Port, one of his most senior teachers, a man respected all throughout Remnant for his skill and prowess as a Huntsman, put both of his hands hips, thrust out his chest and let out a hearty laugh. Unfortunately, with his arms now at his sides, the food that he'd been holding all dropped to the ground, not that the man in question seemed to notice.

"I'm doing rather fine, myself!" Peter laughed as if he'd just told the funniest joke to ever grace human ears. "In fact, I would even say that this is one of the greatest days of my life!"

Ozpin reminded himself that he couldn't threaten Peter with violence and yell at him to quiet down for once in his life. While he doubted that Peter would be offended by him admitting it, he didn't want to risk being reported to HR.

Fortunately, his deputy headmistress didn't seem to have any problem with it. Fixing Peter with a harsh glare that Ozpin was glad to not be at the receiving end of, she asked him, "What in God's name are you doing Professor Port?" putting some emphasis on "Professor."

"Why Miss Goodwitch, I was just headed to my class," he said hesitantly, finally noticing that something was indeed odd about the entire situation that he'd found himself in. Either that or he was simply scared of Glynda. Ozpin really wouldn't have blamed him.

"And why, pray tell, are you not currently in class right now?"

Unlike the complete and utter fear that Ozpin expected Peter to fall into under Glynda's harshest glare, Peter's expression morphed into one of shocked realization, his mouth gaping open as he looked down around at his feet. Ozpin own mouth gaped open when he saw Peter defiantly breaking the first primal rule of survival, bending over and exposing the back of his neck to an angry Glynda while he tried to salvage the piles of food that littered the ground.

"Peter?" Ozpin spoke up.

"My apologies, Ozpin, Miss Goodwitch," Peter said, standing back up with a few of the cleaner food products that hadn't touched the floor. "I'm afraid that I have important business to attend to."

"Peter? What's wrong? Is there an emergency of sorts?" Ozpin asked.

Peter looked back at him for a few seconds before raising an eyebrow. "No emergency, Ozpin." The man's eyes lit up. "In fact I'd say it's the opposite. A miracle! A warrior sent from the heavens! Ozpin." Port grabbed Ozpins shoulders and his piles of food spilled onto the floor again. "I've found my protégé. A new student who has so much potential that I believe they can surpass even myself."

Ozpin raised an eyebrow, ignoring the egg yolk that fell onto and popped on his suit. Not that he trusted Peter's opinion on anything, he'd never seen the man praise a student so highly. "This student must have completed quite the task to gain your respect so quickly, Peter."

"Why of course, Ozpin," Peter said. Looking around a few times to make sure that nobody else was listening, making some shooing motions to Glynda and shrugging when she made no motion to move away, he leaned in close and whispered in Ozpin's ear. "He enjoyed my stories, Ozpin."

"That still doesn't explain why you're out here, instead of in class," Glynda replied. Of all the words that you could describe Peter with, quiet was not one of them. Glynda probably would've heard the whisper if she'd been standing at the other side of the courtyard. "And it also doesn't explain why you burst out of the building with piles of food in your hands."

Peter let out a low chuckle. "My protégé admitted to me that he'd skipped breakfast this morning, and I wouldn't have that. It's the most important meal of the day, after all." He let out a short sigh and shook his head. "And so, I insisted that I would bring him something to eat."

"And will you be needing a substitute teacher?"

"Why would I ever need a substitute, Miss Goodwitch?" Peter asked, his voice covered with a heavy coating of genuine confusion. "I'm headed to class right now. Where else would my apprentice be waiting?"

"But you're going the opposite way," she replied, pointing to the door that he'd burst out of, the students he'd run over now long gone on their way to his class.

Peter gave a hearty laugh. "You may be the deputy headmistress of this school, Miss Goodwitch, but it seems like you don't know all of the little shortcuts and secrets that Beacon has to offer, do you?" he asked, giving her a wink. "You'd be amazed at how easily you can navigate Beacon's maze of hallways if you just know where to go."

After leaning down to pick up a baguette and a small cluster of grapes, he sprinted off the stone pathways and headed for a small corner of the building. As he got closer, it was easier for Ozpin to realize two things: There were no doors where Peter was running towards and Peter was not slowing down.

Despite the sound booming sound of what happens when aura-coated muscle and fat collides with stone walls, Peter's voice could still be easily heard over the ensuing chaos. "I'm coming Jaune, my boy!" he roared out.

There were a few seconds of a very tense and awkward silence - not at all like the previous peaceful quiet - before Ozpin spoke up. "Jaune Ar-"

"I knew it!"

After blinking twice and still being unable to vanquish the second illusion of the day, Ozpin sighed and spoke up. "Good morning, Miss Valkyrie."

"Huh?" The orange-haired student turned to face him, surprised as if she'd noticed him for the first time. "Oh, hey Mr. Ozpin. How are you?"

"I really couldn't tell you," he admitted. How could he begin to explain something that he couldn't understand himself?

"Oh I get it," Miss Valkyrie said, nodding to herself, seemingly understanding something that Ozpin couldn't. "It's secret stuff, right? Just like Beacon's secret passageways?"

Ozpin didn't reply in any way other than sipping from his mug of coffee, but that seemed to be enough for the hyperactive student.

"See, when that smart guy crashed into us, I had the feeling that he knew something secret-like so I decided to follow him, even though my teammates told me I shouldn't." She shrugged and Ozpin shrugged back for whatever reason. "Well, sir. I promise I won't tell anyone else about the secret passageways, so can I just use them for today so I'm not late for class? Pretty please?"

Ozpin shrugged again and it seemed like she took it for an answer.

"Yes!" she shouted, running in the same direction that Peter had chosen.

After being a part of Beacon for what seemed like his whole life, he knew what was coming. Even though there was a perfectly nice Peter-shaped hole already in the wall that Miss Valkyrie could use to enter the school, Ozpin chose to close his eyes and ignore the sound that came from the needless creation of a new Nora-shaped hole.

He waited at least a minute for the awkward atmosphere to fade, and when that didn't happen, he mourned his peaceful morning.

"Jaune Arc, huh?"

Ozpin normally wouldn't think so highly of anyone who could survive a conversation with Peter as listening to any of his stories with any level of real interest often spoke of some level of insanity.

But what if it wasn't insanity? Jaune Arc didn't seem to be very unstable, at least from the brief interactions he'd had with him. Ozpin shuddered to think of how any sane man could stay awake through more than ten words of Peter's autobiographical stories. It would require the omnipotent willpower of a god.

Ozpin shuddered. Was this the power that Aurelius spoke of?

* * *

While he would never describe himself as being lazy, Ren was still surprised to find that even though he had woken up quite early, he wasn't grumpy, irritated, or lethargic. Perhaps that was what it felt to wake up without any "encouragement" from Nora. When he followed Pyrrha back to their room, surprised to find that she'd already finished her morning shower by the time he got there, he quickly entered the bathroom to brush his teeth and wash his face. When he finished, he opened the door to a very tired-looking Weiss Schnee who for some reason was grabbing her nose. Without a word, he stepped out of the bathroom and turned so Weiss could walk in.

Turning back to face the room, he noticed that Pyrrha had already changed into her school uniform. After a moment's thought, he grabbed his own school uniform and had started to walk towards the door before he felt something grip his shoulder.

He turned around to see Pyrrha staring directly into his eyes. Her face was red. Why? "Where are you going?" she asked.

Though he was still confused by the intensity in her expression, the question itself was easy enough to answer. "The communal locker room." While Ren wasn't one to care about whether he was seen changing, he was sure that most other people - especially the female members of his team - didn't share that sentiment.

Pyrrha shook her head, her face still red and her eyes intense. "I'll just step outside," she said. "No need for you to walk all the way across the school. Who knows what trouble you could find yourself in during all that time."

Ren couldn't help but think that he was missing some implications in her odd phrasing, but he shrugged and nodded. "Thank you for your consideration."

Pyrrha looked down at him and smiled. Though it seemed a bit shaky, he smiled back.

When Pyrrha left the room, he changed as fast as he could to avoid the possibility of Weiss walking in, but because he was able to hear the shower still running, he assumed that he was mostly safe from that possibility. Within the minute, he finished changing and invited Pyrrha back into the room. From there on, it was a simple matter of waiting for Weiss to come out before they made a silent agreement to leave the room and head out to the cafeteria.

It was an odd feeling, being enveloped in so much silence for so long. It was a given that he didn't talk, being used to having to compensate for Nora's overload of noise by providing his complete lack of contribution. Pyrrha didn't say much either, though he did notice that she was constantly looking in his direction when she thought he wasn't looking, and Weiss seemed sleep-addled to the point where he was impressed with how she could still navigate the Beacon halls with her eyes almost completely closed. When he had woken up in the middle of the night to use the washroom, he'd heard Weiss whimpering and crying out occasionally in her sleep. Perhaps she'd been having nightmares.

In either case, the three of them made it to the cafeteria without a single word of conversation. While he felt like this should have at least felt strange, Ren felt oddly comfortable with the entire situation. It was still quite early in the morning and the rest of the cafeteria was filled with a nice sort of quiet, filled with the soft shuffling of chairs and muted mumbling of the majority of students that unanimously hated mornings. By the time they finished eating, there were still thirty minutes before classes started and the peaceful quiet between them had yet to be broken.

By the time they walked to their classroom, there were still twenty minutes to spare. Ren had braced himself against the inevitable fact that the wordless quiet was about to be broken with a greeting by their professor, but he was surprised to see that the classroom was empty, save for a familiar student who was currently hunched over his desk. At the sound of the creaking door, Jaune looked up, his expression clearly showing that he was surprised to see them.

Even then, the wordless quiet wasn't broken. Oddly enough, Jaune chose to hide something behind his back and retreat through another door near the large desk that sat at the center of the classroom. Ren was a bit put off by this strange behavior, but within a few seconds, Jaune reappeared.

"H-hey guys," he said. Oddly enough, Ren didn't feel the need to mourn for the streak of wordless interaction that he'd been having with the rest of the team. Jaune's words, while loud in comparison to the relatively silent morning, didn't serve to break the calm state of mind that Ren had kept throughout the morning.

"Morning, Jaune," he said.

"Lovely to see you," Pyrrha said.

"Oh god, it wasn't a dream," Weiss said.

"What are you guys doing here so early?" Jaune replied, ignoring Weiss's strange comment.

While Ren did wonder about why Weiss would say such a thing, he was willing to let it go in order to keep the flow of the conversation moving. "It's eight-forty, Jaune," he said, pulling out his scroll and showing its screen to Jaune.

Jaune's eyes widened slightly as he raised his wrist to check his own watch. "Huh, so it is," he said. "I guess time flies fast when you're busy with something."

Ren raised an eyebrow. "You were busy?"

Jaune shrugged with an easy smile. "Professor Port caught me this morning and asked if I could help him with something, which is why I was stuck here for a while."

Pyrrha spoke up before he could. "How admirable," she said.

Jaune reached up to scratch the back of his head while he gave a nervous laugh. "Nah, I didn't really do anything to deserve praise. I couldn't exactly say no to a teacher this early in the year. It's more like I was forced into the role."

"I still think it's rather remarkable," Pyrrha replied. "I really admire you, Jaune."

"I wholeheartedly agree," Ren said. Though Pyrrha seemed shocked by his added endorsement, Ren couldn't help but admire Jaune's modesty as well. He'd already seen Jaune offering to help the older professor, even though the kind leader didn't claim credit for it.

"Oh god, it wasn't a dream."

The rest of team JSPR ignored Weiss's random comment once again and claimed their seats at the front rows of the class. He listened to Pyrrha and Jaune fall into a conversation about their expectations for the upcoming class and found it was rather intriguing how their conversation could be so animated, yet so calming at the same time. While the shivering Weiss didn't seem to agree with him, he couldn't help but lean back with a smile as the sound washed over him.

He expected at least some of the peace in the room dissipate as the rest of the students filed into the classroom, team by team. He was surprised to find that even with each new team and each new conversation that was added to the air of the room, what should have been a messy dissonance of muddled conversations simply wasn't.

Was this how it felt to be away from Nora? By god, he loved the girl to death, but he couldn't help but feel like a hole in his soul was being filled by her absence.

"Safe!"

The screech of rubber against linoleum shocked him out of his peaceful trance as a high pitched voice echoed through the room. He opened his eyes to see a vaguely familiar figure standing at the doorway. After digging around in his memory for a bit, he recognized her as Ruby Rose, the leader of RYBN and by extension, Nora Valkyrie. He let out a sigh as he mourned the death of his precious quiet.

"Ah, get out of the way, Ruby!" Another shout before a mass of yellow hair, Yang Xiao Long, barreled into the other student.

A few seconds passed before another body passed through the doorframe with a much more controlled jog. "I told you two to slow down, you look ridiculous," Blake Belladonna said.

"Yeah, at least we weren't late," Yang said, grinning and flashing her scroll at her teammate while picking herself up off the ground. "Late by one whole minute. For shame, Ms. Belladonna."

Blake stared down at Yang with an unimpressed look before scanning the room. "I don't think it counts as late if there's no teacher to see it."

With the class being as silent as it was, Blake's words seemed to echo throughout the classroom. Each of the students' heads turned to the teacher's desk to see that it was currently empty, to nearly everybody's surprise. Ren pulled out his own scroll to check the time. 9:01.

The sound of shuffling bodies echoed through the room as the rest of the students no doubt checked their own scrolls or watches to come to the same conclusion. Blake was right. The teacher was late. There were a few seconds of silence before a voice spoke up.

"So does this mean we don't need to have class, or-"

At that moment, there was a low rumbling followed by a loud cracking sound. Some students brought up defensive stances out of instinct, but Ren remained perfectly still, save for the single tear that crawled down his face in mourning for the brief stint of peace he once knew.

A second cracking sound, louder than the first, echoed as the ceiling caved in and something fell into the room. Immediately, the atmosphere turned from peaceful to chaotic, as the pink missile screamed out, "SAFE!"

Ren reached into his pocket and brought out a small brush that he carried around with him at all times.

"Thanks Ren!" Nora said, accepting the brush and dusting off her body.

He pulled out a dustpan too and held it out for her.

As the dust settled, many of the students in the room eventually lowered their defensive stances, though some remained understandably tense.

The same student as before spoke up again. "So does this mean-"

The second verse, same as the first. A loud booming sound echoed through the room as the far wall broke down and a large body barged through with a combat roll.

"SAFE!"

A second tear dripped down Ren's face as he realized that this was his punishment for ever thinking that his life could be peaceful.

* * *

Hi there. I guess you're wondering why this next section isn't bolded or why I'm addressing you - the reader - directly. Simply put, I felt like this story had a sore lack of sane people that you, as the reader, could relate to, so I'm simply offering myself as a narrator so you could have at least one character in this stupid story that you could see eye-to-eye with.

Why couldn't I have made at least one of my characters sane? Why introduce this strange and jarring experience instead of writing the rest of this chapter in the third person perspective of one of the actual characters in the story? Who the hell is the childhood friend? Those are all excellent questions my dear reader.

Anyways…

After Peter Port barged into his classroom a few minutes later than he should have been, the students generally had no idea how to react to this entire situation. Thus, after they watched the old professor attempt to shove half a dusty baguette into Jaune Arc's mouth and adjust the classroom clocks so he wouldn't be late, class resumed as normal.

I'm sure that most of you have seen the episode of RoosterTeeth's production of RWBY: The Badge and the Burden ©, so I will take the liberty of providing my slightly abbreviated version of the script. While the events of this story will not follow the events of that episode exactly, I felt like we could revisit that good old time, just to jog our memories a bit. God knows I haven't been exercising my mind nearly enough. Damn thing's starting to gather dust!

In any case, we'll go over what you kids call the "canon" and then we'll make some corrections to it in order to let it fit our story better. How does that sound. Good? Good.

Now that we're all in agreement, here's my very slightly abbreviated version of the script.

 _*Ahem*_

Port: _"Monsters! […]"_

Random Student: _"Ayyyyyyyyyyy-yup!"_

Port: _"[…] boy […] cabbages […]"_

Ruby: _*giggles*_

Port: _"[…] be […]"_

Ruby: _*picks nose*_

Weiss: _"I do, sir!"_

Port: _"[…] Step forward, and face your opponent!"_

And that was the episode, folks! Now wasn't that a fantastic trip down memory lane? ( _insert reassuringly sane chuckle here_ ) I know I enjoyed the shenanigans that we faced in Volume One, oh what fun we had.

That being said, I did promise that we would be diverging a bit from the events of the actual episode, so why don't we get started on the editing process.

For starters, I want to inform you all that after a long discussion with my creative team, we have come to a unanimous decision to cut out Random Student as a speaking role. While I will not disclose any information about whether he'll be a recurring character in the show or not, we simply could not justify Random's outburst in this version of the story.

In order to fully understand why Mr. Student would not have spoken up during Port's speech, when he was clearly supportive of the charismatic professor in RoosterTeeth's production of RWBY: The Badge and the Burden ©, we would have to go into the background of Mr. Student, including an extensive history about the Student family name and their relationship with walls.

Though I will not go into much detail on the matter, it is within my boundaries to inform you that Random Student IV, great-great-grandfather of Random Student V who was named in honour of his ancestor, was the first human to marry a member of the rare species of wall faunus. While the wall faunus blood ran thin after generations of the Student family marrying humans, the wall culture still runs strong in the Student bloodline. Thus, the blatant wall abuse by Port would have caused Random to harbor a strong distaste for the man.

Other than that, there is not much in this story that strays too far from the events of RoosterTeeth's production of RWBY: The Badge and the Burden ©. Port still talks about boys and cabbages, Ruby still giggles and picks her nose, and Weiss still says "I do, sir" though admittedly the context of that quote is much more different than in the original RoosterTeeth's production of RWBY: The Badge and the Burden ©. In this story, Port asks Weiss specifically to say the words "I do, sir" in order to settle a strange bet with Oobleck. While the series-long bet is already a well-established plot device in Port and Oobleck's relationship in RoosterTeeth's production of RWBY: The Badge and the Burden ©, Port only remembers this bet in this story as opposed to the original events of RoosterTeeth's production of RWBY: The Badge and the Burden © due to a piece of rubble falling on his brain and activating a largely unused memory center in his brain.

Oh and also, Jaune offers to fight the Boarbatusk instead of Weiss.

I suppose at this point I should give you a recap of what our script for the episode would look like with our added edits, though I will further abbreviate it to allow for us to adjust the length of the chapter for time.

Let us proceed, shall we?

*Ahem*

Port: _Monsters! [...]"_

 _[...]_

Port: [...] _opponent!"_

Well, that's going to be all for today's chapter folks. I would love to continue, but sadly our legal team could not secure the legal requirements for us to use the next episode due to a miscommunication in the title card. It seems that they had all assumed that by claiming the copyrighted usage of RoosterTeeth's production of RWBY: The Badge and the Burden ©, we would also be allowed to use the assets found in RoosterTeeth's production of RWBY: The Badge and the Burden © part 2 as well, but sadly that was a legal loophole that nobody noticed until it was too late.

I know you must all feel very disappointed about this turn of events, but I personally view this as a pleasant occurrence. You see, in the book I've recently opened, "Writing Really Dumb Stories for Dummies," I read that the climax of the story should be the most impactful part. Honestly, I was disappointed with the lack of focus on what was obviously the climax of the story in RoosterTeeth's production of RWBY: The Badge and the Burden ©. As an attempt to right the wrongs committed by RoosterTeeth I felt like dedicating a few chapters to my own recreation of this episode that would give it the focus that it deserves as the climax of the entire series.

My name is Sal "Korzark" Monroe, and I'll see you next time.

 _*mic drop*_

* * *

 **AN:**

 **Team RYBN is Team Ribbon. Other alternatives were Rubine (RBYN), Robin (RBYN), Royal Brown (RYBN). While I did really want to use team Robin, since I personally haven't seen any fics that use it, RYBN actually sounds like "Ribbon" if you say it out loud (If you choose to pronounce it as Rye-Bin, you're dead to me), so I chose that.**

* * *

 **Oooookay… To be completely honest I have no idea what got over me there, especially in that last section. I honestly don't think that future chapters will be at this level of absurdity (in terms of writing style. What actually happens in the plot is a steady incline to stupider things) since I pretty much blacked out for an hour and found section three all typed up neatly in front of me. I will promise you all that my original plan for this chapter was not this.**

 **Random Student may or may not be a reoccurring character as he was originally meant to be. Not being a shadow person in Vol 1 means that you're a significant character, a disposable goon, or a Grimm. Random Student VI was obviously originally planned to be the secret big bad.**

 **They only introduced Cinder out of necessity (spontaneously kidnapping Jessica Nigri at a local con to be their voice actor) after they realized that Glynda was the only female character who was over the age of 18. Now that the events of RWBY have undergone an alleged time skip in Vol 4, likely aging the majority of the RWBY cast to be over 18 years old (with the notable exception of Ruby, Penny, and Pyrrha who is eternally 17) and allowing them to be legal waifu material, there will be an absurd influx of new male characters. In Vol 4, every single new named character (sans Kali Belladonna, Ilia Amitola, Trophy Wife (a distant relative of Random Student), and arguably the Nuckelavee) is male. We'll see what Vol 5 brings us before I make a more solid conclusion and submit my hypothesis to RoosterTeeth HQ.**

* * *

 **Future fic update: The Adventures of Team PORT. Starring Port, Oobleck, Port's cousin Re:port, and Oobleck's cousin Twobleck. Coming to fanfiction never.**


	7. A Lazy Retcon

**Very short chapter this time around.**

 **Beta reader and editor: Catastrophic Bacon**

* * *

"Oh my god, Jaune! That was amazing! How did you make that Boarbatusk disappear so quickly? How did you bring it back? Is that your Semblance?"

Jaune gave the orange-haired girl a confused smile. "Umm, you're…" He paused for a second. He definitely remembered her face from when she introduced herself before initiation, but only vaguely remembered her name. "You're Nora, right?" he asked, cringing in anticipation for her to angrily announce that he guessed wrong.

"Yup," she said, beaming with glee. "So you did remember me!"

Jaune blinked twice, surprised that his guess had been correct. He had only repeated the name that he'd heard Ren say in his sleep. The poor guy had been tossing and turning in what Jaune had assumed to be a nightmare. "Uh… yeah," Jaune said.

"That's great!" she said, grabbing his hand and giving it a vigorous shake, as if she were introducing herself again. "Anyways, how did you do that with the Boarbatusk in Port's class? To be honest, you don't look that strong, no offense, so the only reason why I stayed awake in that class was because I thought that Boarbatusk was going to destroy you and I really wanted a good show."

"Umm, Nora?"

"Let me finish Jaune!" Nora said, holding up a hand in front of his face and nearly slapping him in the process. "Anyways, as I was saying, as soon as Port brought the Boarbatusk cage out in the open, I got super excited, but when you started to stroll over when it was still trapped, I have to admit, I got a bit angry. I thought you were going to stab the thing to death while it was still in the cage. I get that it's a Grimm, but even that's a bit cruel, don't you think?"

"Nora?"

"But then you covered the cage with some weird cloth, then you took some sort of stick out, waved it over the cage, then said something weird that I couldn't really understand, and took the cloth back off. The Boarbatusk was gone! Annihilated! Destroyed!" Nora waved her arms out wildly, nearly hitting a student passing by them in the halls. "Bam! Just like that! Without you even touching it!"

"Can I just say something first?"

"And at this point," Nora continued, completely caught up in her own story and completely ignoring Jaune's request. "I was a bit interested. I mean, you still killed the little piggy before it even had a chance to fight back, but I was still at how you could kill in an instant, just like that. Heck, I think even Port was impressed. Even though he is super duper boring, he is a Huntsman, right? If he was impressed, that really says something. I'm not sure about what exactly that something is, but it's something."

"I really-"

"AND THEN!" Nora yelled. "You open the cage, showing us that there really is nothing inside! Then you put the cloth back on, mumble some words, then there's a great cracking sound, like the sound of lightning and thunder!"

"Nora!"

"A Boarbatusk bursts out from behind the cloth! It was empty before, but now it's not! What?!" Nora reached up to grasp at her head. "Everybody went crazy, Weiss nearly peed herself I think." An indignant "Hey" could be heard from behind Nora. "And the Boarbatusk went crazy. Eventually Ren kills it by stabbing it with his Aura hands when it charges for Weiss but-"

"Nora."

It wasn't Jaune who spoke this time, but rather it was Ren. Despite him not raising his voice in the slightest, Nora seemed to have heard it over her own booming voice. She stopped talking and turned to Ren, who was giving her an exasperated look.

"Yes, Ren?" she asked. "What is it?"

"I think Jaune was trying to ask you a question," he said, gesturing back to Jaune who was currently wearing an expression that accurately conveyed his utter confusion.

Jaune turned to Ren, nodding his thanks, before turning to Nora. "Yeah, I do have a question."

"Ask away, sir!" Nora replied, giving him a military salute.

Jaune turned to Ren, asking silently for any explanation on Nora's behaviour, but when his partner's blank face gave no discernable answer, he sighed and turned back to Nora. He took an extra second to gather his thoughts and clear his throat.

"Nora," he finally said. "What are you talking about?"

Nora gave him a sly grin. "No need to be so coy, mister. We all saw it happen, there's no need to be humble about being awesome."

"No actually, we didn't."

Nora turned to Ruby, who had just spoken up. "Didn't what?" she asked.

"We didn't see it happen," Ruby explained.

"None of us know what you're talking about, Nora," Jaune spoke up, taking over Ruby's explanation. "What do you mean there was a Boarbatusk in class?"

Nora gave him a confused look that mirrored his own, before looking around to see that the other members of JSPR and RYBN were nodding their agreement with Jaune. The only exception was Ren, who stared off into the distance, practicing his impersonation of a dead fish.

"Okay, now I'm confused," Nora said. "You mean you're saying that none of you remember Jaune's little show?"

"I've been friends with Nora for a while now," Ren spoke up, still gazing into the distance and not addressing anyone specifically. "She dreams up these scenarios on occasion. The best thing to do is just move on with your life," he said, his voice strangely hollow.

"Ren!" Nora gasped. "So rude! How dare you suggest that best option to deal with me is to just ignore me?"

"You're too fast to run from," he replied.

Nora shrugged. "Eh, fair enough." She turned back to Jaune. "But seriously guys, you don't remember any of that stuff? I know I sometimes can be a little bit crazy, but I swear. This time was for real!"

"No Nora," Jaune said. "I don't think any of us know what you're talking about."

Nora looked around to see that once again, the remainder of JSPR and RYBN were nodding their agreement. Her expression turned into one of genuine concern. "Huh," she said. "Then what did actually happen during Port's class?"

Ren spoke up. "You're really dropping this so easily?" His eyes were wide with surprise. "You never admit that your stories are made up."

Nora rolled her eyes at him. "Well, that's because I'm joking around, Ren. I know they're made up, obviously. But this time I really do think that Port unleashed a Boarbatusk into the class that Jaune did some weird magic stuff to," she said. She turned to Jaune. "But apparently that's wrong. Care to explain what actually happened?"

"Nothing," Jaune said.

"Nothing," Nora mirrored in a deadpan voice. "You mean that the universe just stopped existing for the entire period?"

"Well, obviously not nothing," Jaune countered. "I just meant that it was a normal, everyday class. Nothing exciting happened."

"Oh yeah?" Nora said, her voice taking on a more challenging edge. "Care to tell me what exactly happened during class, then? What subject did Port teach? What were you doing during it?"

Jaune stared down at Nora for a few seconds before replying. "Okay…?" he said. "Well, I was actually in class pretty early since I was helping Professor Port with-"

"Just start from when class actually started, Jaune. Just humor me on this," she added, when Jaune gave her an annoyed glare at the interruption.

Jaune sighed, but started his story again. "Well, you burst through the ceiling and Port crashed through the wall after nine o' clock, so I guess that's technically the first thing that happened after class started." Jaune said. "After that, two more guys showed up, and broke down two more walls..." He froze in place after the words left his mouth. "Wait. Did that part happen?" He looked around at the rest of his own team and team RYBN to see seven faces filled with confusion, no longer directed at Nora, but at him.

"What are you talking about, Jaune?" Nora asked, reversing their roles from a few seconds before.

Jaune paused for a moment before speaking again. "That didn't happen, did it?" he asked. His voice sounded as uncertain as he felt.

"No it didn't. Are you okay, Jaune?" Nora asked.

"I feel okay," he said. Even though he had no idea why he'd even suggested that two random people had shown up just to break down the classroom walls, his head was clear and he felt perfectly healthy. But would a crazy person really be able to identify their own insanity? "I don't know why I said that," he explained, talking in order to avoid questioning his own sanity any further. "I think I just had the feeling that a fourth wall was broken down somehow."

Surprisingly, Nora nodded to that. "I think I get where you coming from," she said. "But even in that case, I broke through the ceiling, and that doesn't really count as a wall, so there would've only been three walls broken down if what you said was actually true."

Jaune nodded back. "You're right," he said. Before he could contemplate about exactly what it meant for his sanity if he was actually thinking that Nora made sense, he continued to tell his story. "Anyways, after you and Port came into class, class started."

There were a few seconds of silence before Nora seemed to realize that he'd finished. "And?" she prompted.

"And that's it?" Jaune said, uncertain of what exactly she wanted him to say. "Like I said, it was a normal class. We sat through the lecture, we left with nothing crazy happening, we left, and now we're here."

"Give me details, Jaune. What exactly did Port talk about? What exactly happened to whatever it was you were helping him set up for the class? When exactly was it that you changed out of your school uniform and into your armour?"

"What are you talking about, I-"

His words were interrupted by a soft gasp, though he wasn't sure who had been the one to gasp out loud. Even without Weiss's shaking finger pointing at his body, alternating between his chestplate and the sword that hung at his hip, he froze in place at the realization that Nora was right. Why? When? How? His childhood friend was the one who was good at quick-change magic, not him. And even if he was good at it, he couldn't remember doing it at all.

"I-" He paused, looking around at the rest of his friends who seemed to have come to a similar realization. "I don't-"

He tried to remember what exactly had led to the point where he'd changed into his battle gear, but for the life of him, he couldn't remember anything between the point when Port had crashed through the wall to when Nora started rambling about how he made that Boarbatusk disappear.

Of course, he had been planning to do that for the entire morning, but he couldn't remember pulling it off. He remembered all the events that led up to it, but for the life of him, he couldn't remember anything actually happening.

"Nora?" he asked uncertainly. "What did happen in class?"

"Exactly what I've been telling you," she said. "Also there was this weird voice in my head that was kind of narrating what was going on. Kind of like the voice of God but a lot more stupid. I didn't really like it to be honest."

"Huh." Jaune turned to the rest of his friends. They all wore the same confused expression that he imagined that he was wearing, but he wanted to ask to make sure. "Did we all just black out for an hour? I think we all just blacked out for an hour."

Aside from the nearly silent squeak of "witchcraft" from Weiss, the rest of the girls and Ren nodded their agreement.

"Huh, that's weird," Jaune said. "Let's just hope that never happens again.

* * *

She looked nervously behind her and saw that the village she'd just performed at was no longer visible over the horizon. Looking around on the road, she also saw that she was the only person in sight for miles. She checked behind her and around her one more time before tossing her ice cream cone down onto the ground. She didn't refuse it back in the village in fear of seeming like she was being rude, but out here she only had to worry about offending the road.

"Why'd it have to be Neapolitan flavour?" she asked herself. Sure the village people had thanked her with ice cream like she'd hoped, but why did they only have the worst flavour in stock? Not that she had any qualms about the taste itself, but it was more of a matter of principle. How could someone so lazily combine three types of ice cream and have the gall to call it a new flavour? After taking a few seconds to look at the ice cream melt on the ground and appreciate how she was happily denying it a chance to defile anyone's taste buds, she walked on along the road.

"Now, how long will it be until I get to the next town?" she asked herself. Even though she knew there was nobody around to listen, she couldn't stand to keep her voice bottled up any longer. It had been tiring to keep quiet for so long at that village. Thankfully, with a new village coming up, she would have a chance to create a new magician persona. One that wouldn't involve staying silent for so long.

Pulling out a foldable map from one of her pockets, she let out a sigh of relief when she saw that the distance to the next town seemed short enough that she'd arrive by nightfall, even though she was travelling by foot. As much as she didn't mind camping by the road, she preferred beds much more. Unfortunately, a short travelling time also meant less planning time for her next performance.

Keeping that in mind, her mind focused on planning her next performance.

"Card tricks?" she asked herself. After thinking about it for a while, she shrugged. Card tricks were always reliable, but there was the limitation that if she was performing for a larger crowd, the audience members at the back wouldn't be able to see properly. Of course, she did have a much flashier way of doing card tricks, but she'd just used that as her grand finale in the last village, and she avoided repeating a trick too often to keep herself from getting bored or tired of it. Also, it didn't help that she was nearly out of fire dust.

"I guess I could do card tricks as an opening, but that won't be enough on its own." She folded her map back up. There was only one straight road to get to the village with no forks or turns in between, so there was no need to keep checking it for directions. As she stowed the map away, an idea struck her. While she knew about the various hidden pockets hidden on her person, to an outsider, it would have looked like she vanished the map into thin air.

"Disappearing magic?" she asked herself.

It only took a few seconds for her to dismiss the idea. Disappearing magic was something that she had didn't practice, simply because she didn't have the patience to make the necessary props. She never understood how Jaune could improvise the necessary materials so quickly, but she never found it in her to be jealous. He had his skillset while she had hers.

She remembered the first time that Jaune demonstrated his disappearing trick, using a small cage and one of his stuffed animals that he insisted was actually his sisters. Her teasing had been merciless, but she had kept it brief so she wouldn't have to wait long before he showed off his trick.

After a few flourishes and magic words, she'd been clapping with excitement at Jaune's magnificent trick.

According to Jaune, the trick was simple. Reveal the cage with something inside, cover the cage with a cloth while inserting a foldable panel that was painted in such a way that it looked like it was actually the back of the cage, lift the cloth and show off the "disappearance" of whatever was inside, cover the cage again, remove the panel, lift the cover, and voila. The stuffed teddy bear reappears from the void!

She and her teacher had both given each other strange looks at Jaune's explanation. It was certainly a very simple trick if you were good enough at sleight of hand, but that was if you had a perfectly drawn out panel that could fool the audience's eyes. One single person with keen eyes could expose you for a fraud and ruin the entire show.

"Damn show off," she muttered to herself as she remembered Jaune's confused response.

Apparently Jaune was secretly a genius artist who could draw hyperrealistic images within minutes. When asked about how long it had taken him to make the panel that he used, he explained that after finding a piece of cardboard and the appropriate paints, he'd been able to draw it in two minutes.

Fortunately for her and her teacher, the three of them had brainstormed ways to pull off this trick without relying on a freakishly good artistic talent, but unfortunately for her, none of them fixed the two fundamental problems with the trick.

Firstly, she needed specific and proper props in order to execute any versions of this technique. While Jaune could circumvent this problem with his overabundance of artistic talent, she couldn't with here severe lack of it.

Secondly, making a teddy bear disappear was not all that glamourous. Jaune said that when he performed this trick in the future, he would either have an assistant to hide in the box, or an animal that he could train to sit still. Jaune had made the crazy suggestion that he would also use Grimm, but their teacher had smacked him on the head, saying that not only would that be dangerous, but the Grimm might just charge through the panel and ruin the whole trick.

Sighing, she conceded to the idea that she wouldn't be performing that trick in the next village, or anytime soon.

She tapped her chin and thought out loud once again. "Hmm. How about-" She interrupted her own thoughts with a small gasp.

A few dozen feet away from her, she saw a pair of small mounds by the side of the road. To the unobservant watcher, it might have looked like two brown mounds of dirt, but she recognized it for what it was. A pair of bunnies, cuddling together as they slept.

It was adorable.

Taking care not to make any sound and startle them awake, she took extra care to circle around them, stepping off the path itself so she wouldn't have to pass by too close, but she stopped once an idea popped into her mind.

The rabbit-out-of-a-hat trick. She took extra care not to speak her thoughts out loud so she wouldn't disturb the bunnies. It was one of the first tricks that her teacher had shown her, and she'd been thinking of putting her own twist on it for a while. Was the next village the first debut of her own invention? Pulling herself out of giant hat or box by her rabbit ears?

She was momentarily distracted when she saw one of the bunnies' nose twitch and her heart melted at the adorable display. She reached into her coat for one of her inner pockets and brought out a camera. This moment was just too precious not to capture. She just hoped the sound of the camera shutter wouldn't wake them.

* * *

 **I wonder who this mysterious childhood friend is?  
**

 **I'd also like to point out that this is my shortest AN section yet.**


End file.
